How It Ends
by risokura
Summary: Everyone says I'm so sick, but I know I'm fine. I'm just fine. Right? AU. NaruSasuNaru.
1. i'm on standby

**dislcaimer: **I don't own Naruto.

**prologue;** _i'm on standby_

My eyes map out the ceiling above my head, stark white against the contrast of the mahogany walls that line your office.

It smells clean and sterile in this place, sort of like a hospital--with it's too white ceilings and walls (just like yours) and ugly, squeaky linoleum floors. That is, before someone who's just been nearly gutted by some psycho on the street gets wheeled in. Then there's so much blood all over that squeaky clean linoleum floor and those immaculate white walls and ceilings, as a place of _healing_ becomes infected with the repugnant stench of death.

That's what this place feels like to me. I feel trapped, confined, like I can't breathe and and I don't like it and I want out.

My gaze steadily travels down the polished mahogany walls, down to the gray carpet beneath my worn (comfortable, really), scuffed up and beaten up black chucks which are tucked underneath the couch I'm sitting on. Even _it's_ perfect.

As plain and as gray as it is, it has no stray threads sticking out from anywhere, you know the little ones you get after you've had that cheap carpet for too long and it starts getting all beat up from people walking all over it? Not only that, but there's no dirt or trash littering it's surface. It's like no one ever uses this office.

I understand that **nothing** is out of place in this office. It's perfect. So _damn_ perfect.

Except me, of course, but you would probably say otherwise. It's like I'm in one of those stupid, "which of these things are unlike the other" puzzles or whatever the hell those things are.

It's obvious what the answer is.

You call my name, and I don't bother looking at you.

You try again a few more times, but I won't look at you, I don't want to, and I won't. Call me stubborn, childish, a brat. I don't care. I didn't asked to be put here. I didn't _want_ to be put here.

There's nothing wrong with me, and yet--as far as everyone else is concerned, there's always been something wrong with me, but that doesn't mean that I necessarily belong in a place like this. I mean, as far as I'm considered, this is normal, right? Doesn't everyone do stuff like this?

Everyone stops eating for a few days at a time, right? People fast for religious reasons and no one gives them shit about it. No one says their _starving_ themselves.

Everyone's thrown up something they've eaten once or twice in their life, right?

Everyone exercises to the point where they feel their going to break, right? When people are motivated enough to achieve something, they never stop.

Everyone has something they want to achieve so they feel better about themselves. What's so wrong with what I'm doing?

Everyone says I'm so sick, but I know I'm fine.

I'm just fine.

...Right? _Right_?


	2. la llorona

**part i-a;** _la llorona  
naruto _

_It says 80.4. It's not going down. Why won't it go, down? It hasn't gone down in three days._

**_You're not trying hard enough. Failure isn't an option, you know this._**

_I have to try. I won't be a failure. As long as that scale keep decreasing, everything's fine. I'm okay. I'll be alright. I'm in control. I'll increase my running by two hours and I'll double up on my rips for sit ups, crunches, pushups, jumping jacks, curls, leg lunges--anything that I have to do, anything to get that scale down. I'm going to do it._

**_You better be._**

xXx

I opened my eyes slowly, looking to my left, and then gazing lazily to my right. With a loud yawn, I stretched my legs, arching my back off of my seat, before falling back into it and slumping down. There were three things that registered in my sleep fogged mind the minute I woke up.

One, my face felt slightly sun burnt.

Two, my seat belt was choking me.

Three, I was freezing.

Yes, I was freezing. Never mind the early evening sun of June, that was blazing overhead, its stifling heat very well burning into everything that could withstand it's rays. It was boiling outside and inside the car, and I was cold.

I groaned in irritation over my current position and how I was feeling. The world spun slightly before my eyes as I pushed myself forward a bit in my seat. I ignored the dizziness, reaching over to fix the seat belt from around my neck and pushing it down so that it rested properly over my collarbone. My mouth and throat felt parched, like I had eaten a mouthful of fucking sand or something. I swallowed a few times, trying to wet my mouth to lessen the painful dryness that I felt. My neck was stiff from sleeping in that position for so long, and my upper back was killing me.

"So now you decide to wake up?"

"Mmm." I mumbled, looking up at Jiraiya—my grandfather—and then looking away from him. I crossed my arms, leaning my head against the interior of the car to catch the breeze that was rushing by the partially opened window on my side of the car. "I can't believe Dad even trusted you enough to get me out here."

He muttered something under his breath about me complaining too much and to be grateful that he was bringing me out here or he was gonna leave me on the highway shoulder or something.

Old people, I swear.

I turned away from my grandfather, shifting my view to look back out at the scenery that we were passing by. It was nothing special, overgrown trees and few random houses, and tons of wide expansive roads and skies. It had taken us a little over an hour to get out here, most of which, I had slept through.

It was a miracle I had slept at all when I did. I had spent the entire night, tossing and turning and sleeping no longer for twenty minute intervals. That's how on edge I had been.

Maybe (_definitely_) because I didn't want to leave and head for the place I was currently headed to. I had fought my father's decision for the past two weeks, believe me, I tried. I had whined, threatened, argued, screamed, yelled, fought and annoyed him in the best ways I knew how, but his will, just like that of tempered steel, wouldn't budge.

I had even tried to get Jiraiya to reason with him, but for some reason, I think he was on the same team as my dad. As many times as he had told me, he was 'the neutral party', I knew deep down that he was on my father's side with this whole thing. Both of them were in this together, and so I was determined to be just as difficult with him in these last instances that we were together, like I had been with my father earlier this morning.

And so, that's how I came to be stuck in Jiraiya's shitty old car which was probably built before the existence of time, on my way to hell.

Wait, correction, this was a place that was supposed to _help _me.

That's all I kept hearing out of anyone's mouth nowadays. That I needed help, and they were going to see to it that I got it. It wasn't my decision, they were making it for me, and if I didn't like it, then tough.

I sighed loudly, staring at the radio as I uncrossed and then crossed my arms over my chest again. I turned to look at Jiraiya, my eyebrows drawn inwardly. "I don't understand why you just don't buy a whole new car all together. The radio doesn't even work. How the hell do you expect people to even have a somewhat comfortable ride if the RADIO doesn't work?"

"Because I usually don't have **ANNOYING KIDS** with me when I drive it." He snapped back.

I ignored him, rolling my eyes. "Don't understand why you just didn't take one of Dad's cars. He's got two. He even left you the keys for the G6 before he left for work this morning."

He ignored me, not bothering to put up with an argument. Jiraiya knew me too well for my own good. He knew why I was doing this. I'm not exactly known for being the most cooperative of people, and it was definitely showing now.

With good reason, I'd make them regret this.

Jiraiya hit his right signal as we got off the highway, which by the way was broken. It's a miracle we didn't get pulled over by the cops. We drove down the long, winding road, passing into town, and then out, down some long winding road, and finally across a bridge. Across it—our destination.

It looked to be a double level brick building, with a winding circle driveway. There was a large painted mural on the front of the building that extended into an upper level part which held no windows. In the front of the winding circle, there was a fountain, with a silver plaque in front of it. Scrawled across the plaque in horrible, black writing were the following words; **_Konoha Hills Residential Treatment Facility.  
_**  
Jiraiya took the car around the winding circle, pulling up in front of the automatic doors, parking the car and turning it off. He didn't look at me, neither I, him, as he got out so he could get my luggage from out of the trunk.

I slunk back into my seat, closing my eyes as I rested my head against the head rest, feeling a headache beginning to form. The car jostled slightly as Jiraiya slammed the trunk shut and I heard him rolling my luggage around to my side of the car. I could feel him looking at me expectantly without even opening my eyes.

**_They're messing everything up, aren't they, kit?  
_**_  
Yeah._

I opened my eyes slightly, glancing at the side mirror to see Jiraiya looking down at me, my orange duffel bag slung over his shoulder. I turned to look at him, briefly, glanced at the automatic doors behind him and then turned away from him, closing my eyes again. "I'm not going in there."

"Of course you are." He said, his tone stern, "I'm not taking you back home, so it's either you get out here or you can sit in my car for the rest of the summer, your choice. I don't have anywhere to be."

I crossed my arms defiantly, "Why not just send me back to that shrink that I used to see when I was twelve, huh? Wasn't something wrong with me back then, too?"

"Things were different back then, and if I'm not mistaken, your father did send you back to that therapist. In your case, this isn't something that can be _fixed_ by seeing a therapist on a weekly basis, Naruto." He said, dropping my duffel bag to the ground, crossing his arms also.

Now I needed fixing. Of course I did. In everyone else's eyes, at lease. "Yeah, because I'm just one big problem, aren't I?" I snapped, narrowing my eyes at him.

With that, I knew I was trying his patience. He yanked open the door on my side. "Naruto, enough is enough. Now let's go, out of the car. Get out here, now."

**_Don't worry, it'll be okay._**

I looked at him as he stood outside the door, staring dead at me as he expected me to budge from my seat and finally step outside. Begrudgingly, I unbuckled my seat belt, letting it clatter loudly against the chair as I stepped out onto the pavement and brushed past Jiraiya. He sighed as I walked past him, muttering something in relief under his breath. Once again, he picked up my duffel, grabbed my rolling suitcase and gestured for me to walk ahead of him and into the building.

Once inside the building, Jiraiya walked straight past me and up to the front desk to address the woman sitting behind it. I wound my fingers tightly into the worn fabric of my orange hoodie, as I dug my dulled fingernails into the palms of my hands. My heart was thudding heavily against my rib cage as I glanced about me.

"Let's see… Naruto Uzumaki, is it?" She asked, flipping through a clipboard. "Ah, yes, here we go. Naruto Uzumaki, checking in for the summer session, is he?" She looked away from Jiraiya, to glance at me for a brief second and the nodded. "Here you go, I need you to sign these forms for me and then we'll get someone to show you to his room so he can go get situated."

Jiraiya dropped the duffel to the ground as he leaned over on the desk in front of him, filling stuff out. The lady said something to him about him taking a seat if he wanted, but he merely smiled and laughed loudly, saying something flirty to her, in which she blushed.

He could _never_ stop being a lecherous pervert no matter where we he went. It was embarrassing. I rolled my eyes, sitting down in a seat not too far away from the desk. My eyes trailed over the interior of the room.

It was white, everything was too _damn_ white.

And I hated. I hated it so much.

The smell, the look, the feel, just everything about this place was setting me on edge. And cold, it was so damn cold in here. I would my fingers around the fabric of my hoodie once more, rubbing my arms. I couldn't help but feel like I was being watched, despite me, Jiraiya and the woman behind the desk being the only people in the area, and they were barely focusing on me.

"Naruto," Jiraiya called to me, and I looked at him warily. "Come here, I need you to sign this."

I got up, still rubbing my arms as I walked over to him. He pointed to where I was supposed to sign with a pen. I grabbed it from him, scribbled my name out on the solid line, before pushing the clipboard right back over to him. He looked it over briefly, and then pushed the clipboard back over to the woman who in turn flipped through the pages briefly and then nodded, smiling at me, then at him.

"You're all set." She got up, pushed a button to her left and said into the intercom, "I've got another one for you, Gai."

Jiraiya looked at her, then at me and asked, "Am I allowed to come with him, or …?"

"I'm sorry, but to respect the privacy of our other residents, we ask that family members and friends not be allowed in the residence quarters for patients during non visiting hours or days. I really wish I could, but its protocol." She said, her face dropping slightly. "However, our staff is accommodating and will help him get situated with the upmost of ease."

"I see." He dropped the duffel bag to the ground, and turned to me, his face solemn, but his eyes belied his true emotion. "Naruto." He started, then stopped, then sighed, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently. He frowned slightly, looking me up and down.

"Come on; spit it out, old man." I said.

"Don't be too difficult, if at all possible. I'll see you in a couple of weeks, Naruto." He said finally, looking at me sternly. After a minute, he quirked a slight smirk and ruffled my hair with his right hand. "So troublesome." He murmured, turning away from me, the smirk still on his face.

And with that, he left.

xXx

"It's not too big a place here," Gai said, as we rode up in the elevator to the second floor of the building. "You're youthful; you'll find your way around in _no _time!"

"I bet," I replied. This guy was a bit too enthusiastic. I didn't mind too much, but he was just …a bit odd.

As the elevator chimed, and opened up to the second floor, we turned left and began walking down a white hallway with doors on each of its side. "This is the boy's wing," He said leaning in a bit too close for comfort, "As you can see; only _boys _reside here."

And a bit redundant, too. "Uhm …yeah."

"Which means no _girls _are allowed over here. I understand the youth today …and those unbridled emotions, but here, we must keep those emotions in check or face dire consequences, am I right?" Gai asked, turning to look at me.

"Yeah." I said, not really paying any more attention to his off handed comments.

He stopped in front of a white door and I looked up at it just as he pointed to it. "I see they were already expecting you, huh?" He pointed toward a piece of rectangular construction paper that had been tapped to the door. On it, my name was written in thick, black marker. There was a second name above my own, but he was blocking it with his hand. He knocked twice on the door, waited a minute and then practically threw open the door so hard, that the knob banged on the wall and the door whined a bit as it came back slightly and stilled. "And this is your roommate, Sasuke Uchiha!"

There, on the bed by the window sat a boy with the palest skin I'd seen in my life and dark hair to contrast against it. He was covered head to toe in navy and black, blending in with the simple décor of the room. He looked up slowly from the book he was reading, completely ignoring Gai and turning his attention to me.

It was one of those looks that you could never forget, no matter how hard you tried. His eyes were dark, almost as black as his hair, and despite being expressionless, I felt like he was burning me whole with just his gaze alone. They were haunting and had a weary look to them.

"Sasuke, this is Naruto Uzumaki, your roommate!" Gai exclaimed, dumping my duffel onto the vacant bed by the door, and then left the room to go retrieve my other suitcase.

I waved shyly at Sasuke, not exactly sure how to approach him. He just gave off this vibe that just screamed—_leave me the fuck alone, I want nothing to do with you_. He didn't say anything, to me, but merely ran a hand through his hair and went back to reading the book that was currently balanced between his thighs.

Bastard.

With my other suitcase in the room, Gai clapped his hands together, and retrieved a pair of latex gloves from his back pocket. "All right! Let's see what you've got in here. Naruto, you can have a seat right over there next to Sasuke's bed for a moment. I've gotta check your bags for anything that this place would consider contraband."

Contraband? Was he serious? "As in?" I asked, taking a seat in the chair by the window, a few feet away from Sasuke's bed. I drew my knees up to my chest, watching as Gai began with my duffel bag. I looked to Sasuke for some sort of help, but he ignored me as usual, flipping a page in his book.

"Medicine's not approved by the facility, sharp objects such as razor blades, pens and pencils, cameras, cell phones, videos, DVD's, certain body products." He instructed me, as he unzipped the duffel bag and began to sift through my stuff. "Anything the facility would deem unsafe to you, or those around you that would be detrimental to your treatment."

I sighed, falling back into the chair as I let my legs drop down to the floor and watched Gai dismantle my bag. Sasuke remained quiet in all of this, keeping his focus on his book, not even bothering to acknowledge me in the whole down time that we had. After about twenty or so minutes, Gai took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket when he was done, wrote something down on it and then turned to me. In his hand he had my toothbrush, a razor and a few other bottles with him. He'd also taken away my cell phone, ipod and wallet in the process.

"All right, Naruto, you're all set! I'll be leaving this stuff with the nurse on this floor to lock up. If you ever need any of it, her desk is right across from the elevator." He reached for the knob, "Dinner's in a half hour so I'll let you start getting situated. Sasuke should know where the dining room is, he can show you how to get there. If not, a nurse always comes around to round up everyone to make sure they're where they have to be." He grinned, giving me a thumbs up, "See you around!"

I sighed, getting up out of my seat and walking over to my bed. Gai had left some of my stuff out all over my bed; I guess it was alright in the long run. Gave me an easier time of just throwing shit in drawers than having to pull stuff out and sort it out myself. I didn't feel much like putting my stuff up right away, so I took an armful of what was on the bed, and dumped it into my orange duffel bag at the foot of my bed. I sighed, sprawling out on the bed. It wasn't too bad, the mattress was slightly stiff, but it was a decent bed. I turned on my side, turning to look at Sasuke who was still seated as he had been when I first arrived.

"Do you talk at all?" I asked, looking at him.

He didn't respond, turning another page in his book and keeping his expression stoic.

Was I talking to a _wall_?

"_Hello_. I'm not talking to the wall. I'm talking to you, Sasuke. What are you, mute?"

Sasuke looked at me again, his eyes stilling holding that vacant, haunting look. After what seemed like the longest time, he shut the book he was reading, sitting it on the nightstand between our two beds. I watched him extend his legs off the bed, sticking his feet into the black slippers at the base of his bed and stood up. He walked away from his bed, without casting a second glance at me and opened the door to leave the room.

"Wait a minute!" I yelled after him, scrambling off my own bed and dashing out the room after him. What was this guy's _problem_? "Come back here! I wasn't done talking to you!"

"So _you're_, Naruto."

I turned around, finding a boy around my height with short brown hair and wild, piercing brown eyes. "And you are …?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Kiba," He started, grinning wildly, "Kiba Inuzuka. Sorry if I freaked you out or something. I saw them put your name on the door a few days ago, figured it wouldn't be too long before you arrived."

I nodded. Okay, this wasn't too unnerving then. Guess I'd be a bit curious to see who I'd meet in a place like this, too.

Kiba continued, stretching his arms out behind his head, "Can't say I feel too lucky for you being roommates with Uchiha, that guy's a weirdo. He just arrived a few days ago and hasn't said a word since he got here. He just stays holed up in his room reading all day and night unless we've got group or something."

"Group?" I asked.

"Yeah, group therapy. You'll probably hear all about it sometime soon tomorrow since you just got here." He shrugged, looking behind me. Following Kiba's line of vision, I saw two other boys heading in our direction, Kiba appeared to have known them because he was waving them over and gesturing at them to come toward us. "Shikamaru, Choji, hurry it up! You know how packed the dining room can get at dinner. It's the only decent meal in this place."

The slimmer of the two walking toward us sighed, as the larger one spoke up, "The foods not so bad here. But I'll agree with Kiba, dinner always seems to be the best meal for some reason."

"Who's this?" The slimmer one asked.

"Oh yeah, this is Naruto. He just arrived a little while ago." Kiba pointed at me, and then gestured toward the other two boys, "Naruto, that's Shikamaru, and this is Choji."

I nodded to each of them, as they reciprocated my gesture.

"Stuck here for the summer too?" Shikamaru asked, his perpetual look of laziness and boredom, never once leaving from his face.

"Forced here." I said. "It wasn't my choice."

"Welcome to the club. You're in the same boat as the rest of us." Shikamaru shrugged, "Guess we've got to make the best of it."

"Yes, yes, alright. Now enough stalling. Choji, I already know you'll agree with me, but can we get downstairs already before the food gets cold?" When Shikamaru just shrugged, Kiba turned to look at me, "Right, Naruto?" His eyes were large and expecting. As much as I wanted to say, no, I just shrugged, letting a hesitant smile cross my face.

"Yeah, dinner, can't wait."

xXx

My mind started calculating the minute I sat down with my plate.

The rice was white, long grained, and it looked to be a cup and a half on my plate, so I'm guess it was about three hundred and ten calories. I had about half a cup of broccoli, twenty six calories. The chicken was baked, without the skin, but it was still covered in sauce. That could have been anywhere from two hundred to six hundred calories, or more at that. All for a grand total of anywhere between five hundred and thirty six to …almost …almost one thousand calories. I wasn't pleased. I was absolutely disgusted, and I felt the overwhelming need to throw up right then and there and I had barely eaten anything.

I began to look around me, immediately looking for a way out of this. There were staff stationed everywhere, all seemingly monitoring the events of what was going on in the dining room. One met my gaze, nodded at me and smiled. I instantly turned away, looking back down at the plate before me.

"So what are you in here for?" Kiba asked me suddenly, his mouth full of pizza.

I paused, looking up from my food which I had been separating and dividing into smaller subdivisions around my plate. "What?"

"You know, why'd you get sent here." Chouji said, absent mindedly, not exactly looking in my direction. His hands were tightly curled beside his plate and as I turned around I saw that he was looking toward the direction of the food line.

"Don't, Chouji." Shikamaru mumbled. He had picked at his pizza, but didn't seem too interested in eating it. He turned to look at me. "Naruto, if you're here, you probably, like everyone else here, have something wrong with you that someone decided was dangerous to either yourself, or those around you. In this place, it really doesn't matter if you tell anyone what's wrong with you or not, someone's bound to find out soon anyway." He sighed, propping his arm up on the table and reached over the table by my plate for a toothpick, "I tried to commit suicide a few weeks ago, currently being treated for depression."

Kiba pointed to himself, "I've got anger issues. Really …_bad _anger issues." He shrugged, "Personally, I don't think I've got a problem. Everyone else is just soft."

"Compulsive overeater." Chouji said. "And a bit of a bingeing disorder."

The three of them were looking at me expectantly and I fisted my hands into my hoodie, looking away from their gazes. "I …" I closed my mouth, and then was about to open it again, when a shrill female voice interrupted our conversation.

"Kiba!" The four of us all turned around at the same time.

Behind me stood a short blonde girl dressed in an oversized sweater, black leggings and grey flats. Her blonde hair was pulled into a high ponytail and she was holding something in her hand, which she mashed against Kiba's forehead the minute he turned around. "Can you _please _tell your freaking roommate to stop leaving these notes posted on my _door_? If he's into Sakura so much just tell him to go up to her and _friggin _talk to her! I'm sick of coming back to my room and finding my entire door covered in these stupid fucking post it notes!"

Shikamaru rolled his eyes, sighing and Chouji simply shook his head as Kiba ripped the post it note from off his head, looking down at it and then back up at the blonde girl, "Why don't _you _talk to Lee about it, Ino!" He snarled.

"Because he's annoying! And I know that if I go near him, I'll never stop hearing, 'tell Sakura I said this!' or 'tell Sakura I said that!', do you know how annoying that is?"

"Tch, you're one to talk." Shikamaru mumbled, looking away from her and across the dining room at someone.

"What was that, Shikamaru?" She asked, glaring at him. She glanced at Chouji and then looked down at me, "And who's this? Are you already corrupting someone new with your stupidity, huh, Kiba?"

"This is Naruto, he's Sasuke's roommate." Chouji said before Kiba got riled up, "Just arrived today."

I met her gaze just as she met mine. She quickly looked away, down at my plate; her eyebrows raised and then looked at me, and then back down at the plate. "Naruto, huh? Looks like we've got another Sai on our hands."

Kiba looked at me, frowned, and then back at her, "Ino, for the love of God, go antagonize someone else before I tell Iruka during group tomorrow, that I saw what you did with your food for lunch today."

She instantly paled at that, crossed her arms over her chest and looked away from him, "Whatever." And with one last look at me, she crossed the length of the dining room and went to go sit in-between two girls on the other side by the entrance. One with pink hair and sea green eyes and the other with pale eyes, almost as if she were blind and black hair. She said something to the two of them, and the one with pink hair looked my way. She smiled slightly at me, and I smiled back.

At least the people here seemed to be welcoming at least.

"Did she really throw her food out again?" Shikamaru asked Kiba, once Ino was out of earshot.

"I don't know, I was bluffing," Kiba said, shrugging and grinning, "But if she did, she just sold herself out."

Shikamaru sighed, turning away from Kiba who was currently laughing his head off and turned his attention to me. "You okay?" He asked, "You look a little pale."

I nodded, pushing my plate away. "Fine."

"Not hungry, Naruto?" Kiba asked, looking down at my untouched food. His tone was a bit softer from the one that he had used before.

"It's okay, they won't bother you on your first day." Chouji said. "Tomorrow though, just be prepared."

"Right." I mumbled, looking away from the three of them. I'm pretty sure from whatever Ino had said, the three of them had already figured out what was wrong with me without me even saying one word.

xXx

Sasuke was already in our room when I had gotten back from dinner. He was on his bed, having changed into pajamas and was reading that same damn book again. He didn't even acknowledge me when I came in, which was fine by me. If he was going to be a prick, then so would I.

I got ready for bed with Kiba, Shikamaru and Chouji in the boys bathroom, and afterwards said goodnight to them and headed back to my room after. Sasuke was even nice enough to leave the light _off _for me when I got back into the room. So_ fucking _considerate.

I don't know what time they woke me up at the next day, but I could tell I hadn't gotten much sleep. In-between all the constant screaming of _CHECKS _and the door opening and closing all night, it was a miracle that I'd gotten to sleep at all. The door creaked open so that a small amount of light filtered in and someone was calling my name. "Naruto? Naruto?"

I rolled over, looking at the door. "Mmm?"

"Come with me, honey, it's time for your vitals."

Vitals?

I sat up slowly, with some effort and rubbed at my eyes, giving a jaw cracking yawn as I stared at the woman who was currently in the doorway. I turned to look at Sasuke briefly to see what he was doing. He was still asleep in his bed, back to me with the sheets pulled up over his shoulders. I turned back to the nurse, and cocked an eyebrow at her. "Vitals?"

"Come with me and I'll explain on the way." She stepped aside, opening the door a bit wider.

I sighed, taking some effort to gather myself up. I wrapped my orange flannel blanket around my body, and stuffed my feet into my slippers and stepped out into the brightly lit hallway, grimacing as the light assaulted my sensitive eyes. She closed the door behind me and signaled for me to follow her. I shuffled along quietly, closing my eyes and opening them ever so often.

"Since you're an eating disorder patient, every morning a nurse, usually me, my name is Shizune by the way, or Kurenai, you'll meet her eventually, will come to wake you up and bring you in to get your vitals taken. You know, blood pressure, weight—"

I stilled, tightening the blanket around myself at the mention of weight.

"…nothing too intrusive, it's just a measure to see …"

I wasn't listening. My mind was going into overdrive. It was too early for this; I didn't need this right now.

"…and Tsunade will be ready for you in a minute."

Shizune was looking at me expectantly to answer her and I stared at her for a minute before nodding. She smiled, walking away and down another hall and disappearing out of sight. There were a few people gathered outside of the office, a few wrapped in blankets, others sweaters or hoodies, looking just about as tired as I was.

I took a seat close by the examination door, ready for my name to be called at any minute. It would be just my luck that Ino would come down and sit next to me a few minutes later. Without the oversized sweater on, I saw the full extent of how skinny she was. You could see her bones protruding underneath her thin patient's gown, along with how skinny her arms and legs were. She looked so frail, as if she were going to snap and break at any minute.

The minute she saw me take a seat next to her, her perfectly arched eyebrows shot up and she grinned deviously. I knew this girl was trouble before she opened her mouth. "I knew it! I knew it from the moment I saw you last night at dinner you were one of us."

…One of _us_? I frowned slightly at her, "One of you?"

She completely ignored my question, taping a skinny finger against the top of her seat. "So what are you in for? Here I was thinking that Sai was going to be the only guy in here sticking his finger down his throat and starving himself, but it looks like we lucked out and—"

"Ino! Would you shut up for two seconds and stop discussing everyone business around here?" An irritated voice snapped from behind us.

I turned to look over my shoulder. It was the pink haired girl that had smiled at me from the night before. She was currently advancing toward the two of us, her hands on her hips and looking irritated. She turned to look at me, "You'll have to excuse my roommate. She can be a bit of a gossiping bitch at times. I'm sorry if she offended you in any way."

I shrugged, "None taken. We're all here for the same reason, right?"

**_Don't lump yourself in with the rest, kit._**

"Just us," Sakura started, extending a hand to me, "Sakura."

"Naruto." I answered back.

"Nice to meet you." She said, "When did you arrive?"

"Last night," I answered, "I'm ...Sasuke's roommate."

Her eyebrows shot up a little and she giggled, "Sasuke, hm? No one has been able to get him to talk at all. Did he say anything to you?"

I sighed, exasperated. "No. I tried to talk to him, but no, he's a stupid, stuck up prick."

"Well …" Sakura said, rubbing the side of her face in thought, "I'm sure he has his reasons. Some people are just quiet."

I was about to respond, when a short blond woman with a more than ample bosom, and a gruff female voice called my name, "Naruto Uzumaki!" She looked around at everyone waiting to be examined. Nothing but girls, I stuck out like a sore thumb. "I take it that's you. Come on."

"That's Tsunade." Sakura whispered to me as I stood up, "Head doctor in charge of us, you know …the 'weight issues' group. She's not too bad, is this your first vitals exam?" She asked.

"Yeah," I replied, stopping myself for a second.

"It'll be a little nerve racking but once you get into the habit of going, it won't be too bad." She nodded, "Well, I'm going back to bed. I'll see you around, Naruto."

"All right." I nodded to her and then headed for the examination room.

Tsunade closed the door behind me as I entered. "You can drop your blanket on the chair over there. Take a seat on the examination table and I'll be right with you." Tsunade instructed, walking over to the side of the room where the counters were. She leaned over, writing something down on the clipboard she had with her.

"Naruto Uzumaki. Sixteen years old. Perviously diagnosed as ED-NOS, now suffering from Anorexia Nervosa." She started, turning around and leaning against the counter. Tsunade looked up at me, briefly then back down at my chart, then flipped through a couple of pages, "Interesting." She set the chart down on the counter behind her, and straightened up. "Okay, on the scale."

I stepped down off of the examination table, and crossed the expanse of the examination room to the scale she was standing by. She pressed a few buttons, and then nodded for me to step on.

It seemed like an eternity had passed before those numbers popped up below me. I looked down at the scale, something inside me swelling and feeling like it was going to burst. The scale blinked and beeped once, twice, and on the third time, my weight flashed across its surface; bright and red.

_87.4lbs_.

She looked at the scale, copying the number down. "Alright, come over here." She patted on the wall next to her, still scribbling down on her clipboard. "Back against the wall, please. Stand straight up."

I did as she said.

"Five feet, five inches." She turned away from me, turning to the clipboard again. "Alright, arms out." I did as she said, sticking my arms straight out for her. She turned them over, poking me a bit and squeezing my arms in examination. She twisted up her mouth, and then scribbled something on the clipboard. Next, she motioned for me to turn around, and said, "Lift up your shirt, please?"

I lifted up my black wife beater, waiting for the collective gasp that always happens when people see my body. It's always, "Oh my god, what happened," or, "I can see your bones, oh my god." But not Tsunade. I guess based on what Sakura said, she'd seen this too many times to be phased by it in any way that shocked her. I felt her hand press against my spinal cord, fingering its ridges and then her hand was gone.

"Take a deep breath," She said, and I flinched when I felt her press the stethoscope against my back. I took one deep breathe, and exhaled. "Again." She said. When I repeated the process, the cold metal was gone in a few seconds and she cleared her throat. "Put your shirt back on and sit on the examination table, please."

I took a step up and sat back down on the examination table. The next thing she did was take my blood pressure. The wrap puffed up, and she held the stethoscope against the inside of my elbow, listening briefly before unwrapping it and writing something down the results on her clipboard. She looked up at me, "89/56."

She followed through with checking my ears, eyes and mouth and then sat down on a chair opposite from me. Her hazel eyes were soft and stern. "How are you feeling, Naruto?"

I looked at her, "As in?"

"Just how are you feeling?" She said, "Angry, afraid, okay …safe?"

_Far from safe_, I thought, crossing my arms and lowering my eyes and looking away from her, "I don't want to be here. I don't need help, I'm _fine_. There's nothing wrong with me."

"A lot of you don't think there's anything wrong with you, but you know there is." She said, "I know you know there is, and until you can fully see it, we'll keep you here for as long as we can. We're only here to help, Naruto."

I looked at her incredulously. I didn't have to voice what I was thinking; she seemed to have already known. _Yeah, right_. Holding me hostage and forcing me to change my body for your liking, that was certainly helping me alright.

She wrote something else on her papers, "I'll be seeing you a bit later on today to discuss the full extent of your eating patterns so we can formulate a specialized meal plan for you. Until then, get some rest, you'll need it." She stood up, headed for the door and opened it for me, "You can go."

I nearly jetted out of the examination room as Tsunade opened the door for me and let me out back into the hallway where everyone was waiting. I drew my blanket in tightly around me, shutting my eyes tightly when I felt my vision growing blurry with each step that I took. I vaguely noted Ino saying something to me on my way out, but I paid her no attention.

I hadn't been in here for less than twenty four hours and already I wanted to scream. I fucking wanted out of this place, couldn't they see that? Couldn't _anyone_ fucking see that?

One of the nurses that was stationed outside escorted me back to my room, nodding at me gingerly as she let me back into my room and closed it behind me once I was back inside. It was dark, but I could make out the hazy markings of the sun outside the pulled blinds and dark curtains that framed the only window in our room.

I got right back into my bed, not bothering to get back underneath the sheets, but wrapped myself up in my flannel sheet and buried my face into my pillow and shut my eyes as tightly as I could.

They were going to break me down in here. I was going to spend the next two and a half months, two painful and agonizing months reversing what I had dedicated so much time into. They were going to ruin everything and it fucking sucked, and I fucking hated it.

I clenched my teeth, when I felt something wet slide out from beneath my eyes, and shut my eyes even further, pulling my blanket up over my head and cocooning myself within it as I started to shake.

This was only the beginning.


	3. your eyes open

**part i-b; **_your eyes open  
sakura_

I used to live in an empty house.

Not in the literal sense, of course. It had furnishings, obviously, things of material worth. But that was it. There was nothing else besides that. It was desolate and barren; nothing ever made it past its drawn drapery and covered windows.

Behind its closed doors, it held secrets. Buried beneath hardwood floors, it creaked and ached. It wanted to breathe, to speak so badly. But nothing would ever let its voice be heard. Everything was always kept secret, pinned beneath lock and key. Chained, and barred. As if the world would break, come to its cataclysmic end if anyone were to hear a word of it.

Except, it would. The curtains needed to stay drawn, the house empty, silent.

It needed to keep out the sun, the air, the outside world. Joy, laughter, freedom. All that was scattered and free out there, was strictly enforced within these four walls. Every rigid thought, principle and practice, everything was kept within these walls.

For seven years my father and mother lived with me inside this empty house.

They faded into shapes of red (_anger, hatred, rage)_, green (_jealousy)_ and of course, the most prominent, black and blue (_my mother's face)_. The world didn't see it though, with its bright blue skies, radiant sunshine, and perpetual light. It remained oblivious to this desolate place, the rays of light ending short of a slightly opened door, or warming the cool panels of glass engraved into the front door.

Few passed between its secrets, few opened the doors, and few knew what lurked behind them.

Their shadows danced along the edges of my walls whilst I hid behind the sheets of my bed. Sometimes, a shadow would make his way past father in the seventh year. One that didn't become lost within this house, simply because they were lost to begin with. At night they stayed with me from time to time, a night or two and then they would be off, leaving me alone in the house again.

In two years, it was just me and my mother.

The house stayed the same, still holding secrets, still holding pain. Still aching, still bleeding. Still screaming, but no one heard it, no one acknowledged it. We just existed within it.

Father was on the outside, watching, knowing this was for the best. He was in the sunshine, the light, everything that wasn't allowed to come inside. I saw him in glimpses of the windows, and mirrors, but that was all it was. A fading mirage, something that wasn't solid, something that was fleeting, only allowing me to grasp it for so little at a time. It was in this place that the shadows appeared again, slipping past father and staying the night with me.

One, two, three, four, five—_quattuordecim. _It was on a day when I finally tried to feel the bright rays of the sun that all of it came together. It was not the empty house which held my mother, not the mirrors in which my father resided; I was in the sun, in the warmth of the outside world in which I was not allowed to exist.

And there was a reason for that.

For this was a place where I would be forced to look up at the sky, my back against the ground, spread out for all to see, the dying grass poking at my back, the sky a brilliant cornflower blue overhead. I did not have a bird's eye view; I was inessential, worth nothing but dirt. The sun was shining down upon me, and yet, I was covered in nothing but shadows. They were of the same types of shadows that had snuck past my father. They were was brief, holding me down and smothering me into silence. And then they left as soon as they had come, taking with them something I would never get back.

Everything that I wanted to see had been stolen from me in that instance. I curled up; breathing shaky, as I stared at all that was around me. After all this time, my thoughts of the world outside the house had been wrong. It was just as cold out here, as it was in there. The sun had lied to me, its promise of safety, protection, everything was false, none of it true.

And when I returned to the empty house, I opened a door that would be my prison for the next three years. There was a table, and upon the table were littered items for consumption, and on the other side, I found myself stuck inside a room full of water, on my knees, mouth wide, bowed down in front of white.

Outside the empty house, my world turned to grey. It began to storm, no sunshine ever reaching the glass panels in the front door, or slipped into cracks and crevices not blocked off by the drapery. I no longer heard my mother's cries resounding within the house, I no longer saw my father's gaze in the mirrors that I passed by, I became entrenched, routed to this new room that had been developed just for me.

It became the new sun, the new promise of safety and protection. My control, it offered me a secret place of my own. There were no shadows, nothing could wander into this room and harm me.

I was protected.

I was finally safe.


	4. rhineland

**part ii-a; **_rhineland  
__n__aruto_

I'd dozed off shortly after I returned to my room, but I woke up with heavy, tired eyes, a slightly wet pillow and feeling worse than I had been prior to falling asleep. The sun had crept up fully, filtering into the room from behind the shades and draperies that adorned the windows. It was currently silent in the wing. I didn't hear the noisy squeak of nurse's shoes pacing up and down the corridors, or anyone whispering _checks _into rooms. I rubbed at my eyes, letting my flannel blanket fall off my shoulders and turned to look at the clock that rested on the nightstand_._

_7:25 AM. _

I don't know how long I had slept for, but I'm pretty sure it hadn't been too long. I looked over to Sasuke's side of the room to find him missing, his bed already made. He was probably off being weird and shit, so whatever.

Sighing, I fell back into bed, cocooning myself within my blanket once again, making sure that it blocked out the sunlight that was steadily traveling across the bedroom. I was so tired, and freezing. As much as I tried, I couldn't find it in myself to sleep anymore. Because when I closed my eyes again, I saw numbers. I saw _those _numbers.

_**87.4. 87.4. 87.4. 87.4.**_

Seeing those numbers, seeing that stupid fucking scale rising back up, knowing that it wasn't going down was freaking me the fuck out. What's more is that I _knew _what the numbers were, and it was driving me fucking crazy.

It was like I was right back in the psychiatric ward of the hospital. They controlled everything; I was powerless against them as they sought to take my control, _my _body. Not theirs, _mine_. It wasn't there choice; they had no right doing this to me. That fucking feeding tube, all those stupid fucking supplements that I had to take, everything that they had forced me to do.

_**87.4. 87.4. 87.4. 87.4.**_

I had tried to do something, _anything_ to lose what I had been forced to gain, but Jiraiya and Dad had been on me like hawks.

The minute I had been discharged from the hospital, after gaining back some weight, the two of them put me on lockdown until I was finally shipped out to this place. I wasn't allowed out the house, I had _time _constraints on bathroom time, I wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom after I ate, I had to sleep with my door open, I was up at a certain time, asleep at a certain time. All of this, just to take away the one thing that truly mattered to me, which was mine, my one source of stability.

"_Fuck_!" I groaned, pushing my face into my pillow and shaking my head.

The door to the room opened a not a second later, and I turned to see Sasuke come in, smelling faintly of something that resembled cold water and vanilla. He dropped something in a bin by the foot of his bed, and then left the room, leaving it partially open as he had gone.

A few minutes later, I heard Kiba's loud voice float in through the partially opened door. "It's too early for this! Why the hell are we the only ones with group so early in the morning? At least let me eat first before I have to sit down in a room with equally crazy people and talk about how I 'feel' about shit!!"

"Shh, Kiba, are you trying to wake up the entire floor?" That was Chouji.

"Let them wake up, I don't care!" He snapped.

"Of course you wouldn't." Shikamaru said, sighing loudly.

I sighed, pulling my pillow over my head, flinching when the door flew open a few seconds later. I turned slightly, to see Kiba standing in the doorway, face lively and bright. "Yo, Naruto! You up?"

"I am now." I mumbled, pulling the pillow off of my head.

"Well, get a move on it! We've got group in an hour or so."

"Group?" I asked, picking my head up from the pillow and sitting up in bed.

He motioned for me to come with him, and I got out from underneath my sheets, dragging the flannel blanket with me as I crossed the short distance between my bed and the door. Once outside, Kiba pointed to something written under my name on the side of the door. "See, right there, under your name. It says group leader _Umino Iruka_, you're with us." He rolled his eyes, "I'm guessing Sasuke didn't bother telling you anything."

"He doesn't talk." I said, rolling my eyes at the thought of my incorrigible roommate. "Of course not."

Kiba laughed, "Well, anyway, come on with us. We were just on our way to the bathroom before it gets all full of guys and gross and shit."

"Alright, alright, let me get my towel and I'll be right with you guys." I said, turning around and heading back into my room. I threw my flannel on to my bed and sighed, dragging my duffel bag out from by the side of my bed and ruffled around in it for one of the three towels I'd brought with me.

So much for sleep.

xXx

Our room for group therapy was this moderately sized room, a bit bigger than our bedrooms, on the first floor of the building. It was littered with couches, bean bag chairs and the types of recliner chairs that would swallow you whole when you sat in them. The windows in the room were abundant and gave view to what lingered behind the facility, a large lake littered by an expanse of trees.

Kiba, Chouji, Shikamaru and I were among the last to arrive. Just as we had taken residence on a large sofa by the door, in came a short, tanned man with a distinctive scar across his nose, and hair pulled up into a ponytail atop his hair. He was carrying a large manila folder in his arms, and a coffee cup in his other. He smiled gingerly at the rest of us as he walked in and sat down heavily in his chair.

"Alright, good morning everyone …" He set his coffee down on the table beside him and flipped the folder open. "…Just going to make sure everyone's here."

"Sakura, and Ino are here …" He looked at the two of them, seated together on the floor and then turned to look at the dark haired girl, "Hinata, Sasuke," He moved past her to three boys to the right of Sasuke, who was seated underneath the window on a chair, not bothering to acknowledge anything that was going on. "Lee, Gaara, Sai …" and then he turned in my direction, "Shikamaru, Chouji, Kiba …well you're a new face." He looked down on his list and then looked back at me, "Naruto Uzumaki?"

I nodded, "Yes."

"Well it's good to finally have you with us, Naruto." Iruka said, smiling at me as he closed his folder, "I'll take this time to briefly go over what group therapy stands for."

I shrugged, "Uh …okay."

"The purpose of having group therapy is to form a safe and confidential place where you can talk amongst your peers without fear of being judged or rejected. Anything said in this room remains within this room." Iruka began, speaking more so to me than anyone else in the group. "Naruto, since you're new to the group and not everyone may know you, and you may not know everyone else, why don't you introduce yourself and maybe tell us a little bit about yourself?"

I surveyed the room, looking at all the faces that stared right back at me. Kiba was sitting down on the floor on the left of me, looking up expectantly at me, as was Chouji who was seated at my right. Shikamaru, who was sitting next to Chouji, just shrugged, fending disinterest in the whole thing.

Ino and Sakura were seated on the other side of the room, both of them on the floor like Kiba was. Both of them were looking at me just as Chouji and Kiba were. The dark haired girl, Hinata was sitting on a bean bag chair next to them, shooting shy looks at me, and looked away before we even made direct eye contact.

Next was Sasuke, who was sitting next to the dark haired girl, and still wasn't paying any attention to what was going on in the room. He was busy looking out of the windows, arms crossed, with a lost look on his face. Next to him, sat a boy that was even paler than him with eyes just as dark, but less haunting and tired looking. He smiled gingerly at me, and I nodded back. That must have been, Sai.

On the other side of him was an auburn haired boy with heavy black eye liner, who held no expression on his face, his arms crossed and was looking menacingly at me. Gaara, was it? And I thought Sasuke was bad when it came to the looks he gave people, sheesh. Lastly, there was a boy next to Mr. Death Threat Eyes who was _beaming _at me, his smile so wide, I thought it might break his face if it got any wider. That was Lee.

I looked back to Iruka and he nodded again and I sighed. "Uhm, well, my name's Naruto, I …uhm …" Honestly, what was the point in throwing me on the spot like this? I crossed my arms, sighing loudly, "I just arrived here last night and I'm not really looking forward to being here …" I looked at Iruka, "Because honestly, I think me being here is a waste of time."

"You're not the only one." Kiba mumbled in agreement, snickering gingerly. At that, a small murmur went through the room, until Iruka silenced everyone and spoke again.

Iruka sighed, shaking his head, "Well, you all seem to be in agreement on one thing, for once." He turned to look at me, "Why do you say that, Naruto?"

"Because it is." I said, grimacing. "I was forced into this stupid place because my dad decided that I had a _problem_, and I supposedly needed _help_, and no one seems to believe me when I say there's _nothing _wrong with me, I'm fine."

"Naruto brings up a valid point in feeling like he was forced into being here," Iruka said, turning to look at the group, "Would someone like to add their opinion on what he said?"

The room was silent for a moment, before Kiba spoke up, "He's right," He said, crossing his legs and sitting up, "Okay, so I broke a couple of people's faces in, can't seem to watch my mouth or can't seem to react to certain situations in the right way. That doesn't give anyone the right to tell me, 'hey, you belong in a fucking loony bin' and put me away for the summer. That's just saying to me that you're trying to avoid the problem."

"I don't want to be treated like a problem; I want to be treated like a person, right?" Chouji asked Kiba.

"You bet your fucking ass I do." Kiba replied, crossing his arms and leaning against the chair he was propped up against.

"The matter is, most of you did not choose to be here," Iruka said, "But the fact is, whether you think so or not, most of you _do _belong here. People in your lives, your loved ones, families, friends, guardians, anyone who cares for you and your well being have felt like something you're doing at this point in time is detrimental to your health, and they don't want to see you hurting anymore. Since this is only our third group session, maybe some of you would like to share your stories of how you came to be here if you're ready and in result, perhaps, will learn something about each other in the process."

"Well, since I was already talking about breaking people's faces in, I'll go first." Kiba said, shrugging. "I'm here because supposedly I have 'severe anger issues'. I've stolen shit, gotten into fights, sold drugs, anything you could possibly think of to break the law. I got sent here after being expelled for the fifth time because I held some kid at knife point in my last school, got sent to juvi for a little while, and eventually they forwarded me here."

Hinata's hand flew to her mouth instantly, and gasped at the end of what Kiba said. The first sound out of her, and it was a gasp. He got no reaction out of Chouji and Shikamaru; I'm guessing they'd already heard the story before. For some reason, despite him saying all of that, I wasn't in the least bit afraid of him.

"Seriously, Kiba?" Sakura whispered, looking a bit shocked if not as much as Hinata.

"You're crazy." Ino said, frowning a bit. "With a knife, Kiba?"

"Yeah, and?" Kiba challenged, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. "Why don't you tell us why _you're _here then, Ino?"

Ino shrugged, "All of you can pretty much tell why I'm here just by looking at my physical stature, so there's not much to tell." She eyed me especially. "I had a heart attack a few months back and flat lined at the hospital. I shouldn't even be alive at this moment, and yet here I am in all my emaciated eighty pound glory. I'm here so they can fatten me up and then release me back into the wild."

"As if you were hardly fat in the first place." Kiba muttered under his breath, or at least he tried to. Pretty much everyone in the room had heard it. I found myself frowning, even though the comment wasn't even directed at me.

Ino's face instantly flushed, "What the hell would _you _know?" She snapped, rising up out of where she was sitting, balling her hands, so that her nails pressed tightly against her palms. Sakura's hand gently went to Ino's back, gripping the thin girl firmly in an attempt to calm her down, "You have _no _idea what its like."

"Stop." Iruka commanded sharply, "This isn't a place to antagonize one another." He began, looking between Ino and then at Kiba, "It's a place of understanding, to get to know someone else that's struggling with their demons just as you are. Ino, why don't you tell us what it's like for you to struggle with your disorder, and in turn, Kiba maybe you can tell us about what makes you so angry?"

She looked away from Kiba, then at Iruka and her face scrunched up as she bent over to hold her ankles, "I'm a prisoner in my own body." Ino started, looking up at Iruka through misted eyes, "I can't focus on anything else but what I'm going to eat, what I'm not going to eat, how much I eat, when I'm going to eat. It's in my mind all the time, everywhere I go, and I feel like I'm powerless to stop it." She sighed, "Then it's the scale, how much am I going to be when I get on the scale? Did I lose any weight because I restricted all day yesterday? Should I exercise more? Of course I have to exercise more, don't I want that number on the scale to go down? Don't I want to get rid of these bulging thighs, this fat stomach, these flabby arms, this double chin, this bulbous ass?" She looked up at Iruka, her blue-green eyes sharp, though still slightly misted, "Everything needs to be perfect, it _has _to be perfect. I have to be in control."

It was like she was reading my mind.

"And since while you're in here, you can no longer do any of what you just said, what does that feel like for you?" Iruka asked.

She looked at him like he was crazy, "What the hell do you think?! I _have _no control in here!" She threw her arm out in gesture to all of us, "None of us do!"

Iruka nodded, "How many of you agree with, Ino?"

"I do." Sakura said softly. She glanced at Ino first, who had drawn her legs up to her chest and wrapped her thin arms around them and buried her face into her knees. Sakura looked down at the floor, her expression a bit sad as she spoke, "I agree with her whole heartedly." She gazed up at the ceiling, "I don't think I have a right to complain, because it was actually _my _decision to come here, no one forced me to. But …but, I just want to say that …I agree with her that we have no control in here. Everything is decided for us, we're told what we can and can't have, we have to follow rules, guidelines, things that we otherwise wouldn't have out there." She nodded behind her at the windows. "But …but I guess it's to help us establish a healthier degree of stability in our lives. Maybe that's what they're trying to help us do in here."

"Sakura is right," Lee said, smiling brightly at the pink haired girl, and giving her what looked to be a thumbs up. "I agree with her as well as Ino."

"You would." Ino muttered under her breath, looking up at Lee, irritably. Kiba snickered, glancing at Lee who seemed unperturbed.

Sakura sighed, "Shush."

Iruka cleared his throat, looking to the other side of the room, "Do you have anything else you'd like to say, Lee?"

He thought for a moment, crossing his arms and then nodded, "It's not that we don't have control in here, we just have a _different _form of control in here, correct?"

"Something like that." Iruka said.

Chouji cleared his throat and a few heads shot his way, "Uhm, it's like …we're learning to deal with our problems in a different way, correct? We're learning a different method of control …or like Sakura said, gaining a healthier degree of stability in our lives?"

"Exactly. Does anyone else have anything they want to say before we have bring our session to a close?" Iruka asked, writing something down on the top of the first sheet of his thick manila folder. When no one said anything, he wrote something else down and nodded, "Good work group, I'm happy with the discussion we had today. To those of you that opened up, I'm glad you did, to those of you who have yet to talk; I hope to see you participate soon. You may all leave, we're done for today."

xXx

"And that's group." Kiba said, as we walked out of the room at the end of the session, me, him, Shikamaru and Chouji being the last. "Well?"

"It's not that bad." I said, rubbing the back of my neck as we left the room. Pretty much everyone had left the room already and were all heading in the direction of the dining room for breakfast, probably. "When do we have group?"

"Monday through Friday, same time as always. Same room." Shikamaru answered, cracking his neck slightly and stretching gently.

"Hmm." I looked down the hallway to see Sakura and Ino coming out of the bathroom. Ino's face was red and blotchy and Sakura was holding paper towels out to her for her to take. I guess, as bitchy as Ino acted, she was still human, still prone to getting her feelings hurt.

Having turned to see what I was looking at, Chouji turned to Kiba, crossing his arms over his chest. "Ino's looking a little worse for wear; I think you should apologize to her, Kiba."

"For what?" Kiba snapped, gritting his teeth, his prominent canines barred.

"We're all struggling in here, you know that. Take it easy on her." Shikamaru said, pocketing his hands.

Kiba muttered something underneath his breath, turning to look at me, "What do you think, Naruto?"

"I agree with Shikamaru and Chouji." I said, looking at Kiba and then back at Ino and Sakura who were about to turn away from the bathroom and head toward the dining room like everyone else had.

"Tch." Kiba turned to us, Chouji and I nodded and Shikamaru shrugged and he was off down the hallway, catching up to Sakura and Ino.

"Oh, Naruto!"

I turned around to see Iruka rushing out of the group therapy room looking relieved to find that he had caught me before I went anywhere, "Yeah?"

"I have a note from Dr. Tsunade. She says you're to report to her office right after group …can't believe I almost forgot to give it to you." He adjusted the folder in his arms, and went to close the door, "Here, I'll escort you."

I turned to look at Chouji and Shikamaru who nodded knowingly, "We'll catch up with you later, Naruto."

Iruka motioned for me to follow him as the two of them headed off to the dining room. He was mostly quiet, as was I as we headed for the elevator for the second floor and headed past the nurses' station and down the corridor that Shizune had previously taken me to earlier that morning.

He knocked twice on the door and I heard a gruff voice call out, "Come in." A few seconds later. Tsunade was seated in her office, flipping through papers in a folder. She nodded silently to Iruka who left me in the room, and then motioned for me to come forward and take a seat in the chair opposite her desk.

"How are you, Naruto?" She asked, folding her hands together on top of her desk.

"You asked me that this morning, and I remember telling you that I _don't _want to be here." I said, folding my arms as I sunk lower into the chair.

"Mmm." She scribbled something down on the papers in front of her. "I want you to fill this out."

I looked down at the paper she passed across the table and picked up the pen she pushed along with it. It was an assessment sheet, something to gauge my eating habits, how I felt about food, that sort of thing. I looked up at her and she nodded to it again. When I was done, I passed it across the table and she looked it over.

"Well?" I asked her.

"Are you allergic to any foods?" She asked, writing something down on the end of the paper.

"No."

She nodded, "Do you have any particular foods you never restricted no matter what the circumstances?"

Well that was different. "Ramen." I said, "And red bean soup, and milk."

She nodded again, "Alright then, there's one more thing." Tsunade looked past me and I turned around, "You can come in, Kakashi."

The door opened, and a lazy eyed man came walking through, with unusual fly away grey hair, despite barely looking a year past thirty. I couldn't see any other part of his face because it was obstructed by a surgical mask that covered the lower half of his face. …They didn't perform surgeries here, did they? What the hell?

He gazed at Tsunade, and then down at me. "Naruto, this is Dr. Kakashi Hatake. He'll be your individual therapist in the time that you'll be spending here." Tsunade said.

He nodded at me, and I nodded back, albeit a bit hesitantly, at him.

"Kakashi, you can take Naruto for the time being. On the way out, can you please leave this with Tonton to forward to the kitchen, please?"

He stepped forward to retrieve the paper from Tsunade, looked it over and nodded, "Right away. Naruto, follow me, please."

I got out of my seat to follow after Kakashi, "Naruto, I'll see you tomorrow morning." Tsunade said.

xXx

Kakashi He didn't say anything else as we walked down the hallway from Tsunade's office and headed to one of the nurse's stations on the first floor. He dropped the piece of paper off with a stout, chubby girl at the window and we continued down another side corridor.

He opened a door and instructed for me to take a seat on the couch opposite his desk. Kakashi flicked something on by his desk and I heard a low hum resounding outside. "Naruto," He began, looking down at a paper on his desk, as he took a seat and exhaled gently, "…tell me about yourself."

I frowned, irritated by the whole course of how today was running. It was doctor, after doctor, after doctor, and I was getting sick of it. "I'm pretty sure they gave you a file to read. You probably already know everything there is to know about me. I've got nothing to say."

Kakashi nodded, "If you don't want to talk, that's fine." He rummaged around in a desk drawer of his, and pulled out a book that I recognized in an instant. It was my grandfather's, as in; it was the adult series that my grandfather wrote. He was always going on about how great it was, but personally, I never found anything interesting in it. He told me I didn't appreciate, 'great literature'. Pffttt, great literature my ass. It was popular, but I didn't care for it.

I took the time to flop back down on the couch I was sitting on, looking up at the ceiling. It's clean and white, simple, in contrast to the polished mahogany walls that encase the office. I look down at the carpet. Grey and hard. It's not like the semi-plush grey carpet in our rooms; this one is matted and grey, with material more like an area rug. There are three small windows at the top of the room for light to filter in, but that's about it.

I look at Kakashi. He's currently engrossed in that stupid book of my grandfather's and I sigh irritably. It gets his attention, but he doesn't look at me. "Hmm?"

I crossed my arms, "That series is horrible, I hope you know." I finally say after some time.

"Oh?" Kakashi asked. He's looking at me, his eyes going into mere slits as I presumed, he was smiling at me.

"Yeah," I say, "You're wasting your time."

"How so?" Kakashi asked, setting the book down on the table.

I shrugged, "You just are. It's boring."

"How much have you read of it?" Kakashi asked.

"More like _forced _to read it." I mumbled, "The whole book, and I hated it. He hardly ever makes it interesting; at least …I think so. I don't get some of it anyway, so whatever."

"He?" Kakashi asks.

"The author." I replied, "He's my grandfather."

"I know." Kakashi began, "He brought you here, correct?"

I looked at him, raising an eyebrow and sat up, "And you know that how?"

"It's on your records." He stated, looking at the paper on his desk. I bit my lip, looking away from Kakashi, and falling back onto the couch. And off he went with the smile I couldn't see. "Looks like you did have something to say after all, Naruto."

xXx

"Naruto! Hey, over here!" Kiba waved me down the minute I entered the dining room and got my food. Shikamaru and Chouji were also there. I walked over to them, sitting down in the vacant seat between Kiba and Chouji. "Where've you been? You've been gone nearly all morning!"

"I had to see Tsunade for a little while." I said, frowning as I looked down at the pancakes, strawberries and milk on my plate. I looked to the side of my tray, eyeing the butter and syrup tablets the chef had added to them. As _if_ I would eat them. "And then I went to go meet my therapist."

"Who do you have?" Chouji asked, leaning onto the table.

"Kakashi?" I asked, looking at the rest of them. "Kind of odd? Wears a surgical mask despite the fact that he's not operating on anyone."

Kiba looked behind me and the whispered lowly, "People say his face is horribly disfigured, that's why he wears it."

"Kiba." Shikamaru said, rolling his eyes.

"At least, that's what I heard from… you know, from people."

"Most of us have Asuma or Yamato. I think you; Sai, Sakura and Sasuke are the only ones with Kakashi." Shikamaru said. "What's he like?"

"He was okay." I said, poking at my food and grimacing. "Didn't really ask me much, I didn't really feel like talking."

After that, the conversation turned away from me to Kiba talking about his dog Akamaru, and how his sister had sent him a picture of him for his room, and how big he'd gotten since he'd been away. Kiba asked me for my input from time to time, distracting me from looking at the food that was in front of me.

I was hungry, I wasn't going to lie. I had barely eaten anything since I'd arrived last night, and prior to my release from the hospital, I'd been forced into eating on a constant while I had been on lockdown at home. But without sitting down at a kitchen table with my father and Jiraiya all the time, it was much easier to make it _look _like I had eaten, rather than consume what was in front of me.

I had taken the time to cut up my pancakes into the smallest possible squares that I could, leaving the syrup and butter alone. I picked at the strawberries, forcing myself to take a few bites, but no more than that. I only thing that I really touched on my plate was my milk, and that was gone in two seconds flat.

"Not hungry again?" Chouji asked, looking down at my plate.

"No." I replied, a bit unnerved that he was watching me eat. Kiba and Shikamaru seemed to have tuned in on our conversation also.

_**87.4. 87.4. 87.4. 87.4.**_

"They won't let you leave until you eat it. Either that, or you get a mark." Shikamaru said, grabbing a toothpick from out the dispenser.

"Mark?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, there's a level system here. We all come in at level one, meaning you basically can't go anywhere by yourself besides group, or unless you've got an escort of some sort whenever you go somewhere or else you get marks. Certain marks are more severe for certain people, such as with you, in your condition…if you don't finish that, you'll get a pretty bad mark." Shikamaru explained.

"You can get them for the stupidest shit." Kiba said, rolling his eyes, "But Shikamaru's right, you might want to finish that and save yourself the hassle."

Chouji nodded, "It's hard, I know. But at least try. If they see you're making an effort besides out rightly not caring, they'll be more lenient with you."

I looked at Kiba, Chouji and finally Shikamaru and then looked down at the cut up pancakes in front of me. I grasped the plastic spork in my hand and with it, dipped the utensil into the warm, plush pancakes watching them sink underneath the weight of my hand. I hesitated for a moment, and then took a bite, chewing it with much effort, before swallowing.

Kiba nodded at me to proceed with eating, so I stabbed the next small piece of pancake by me and proceeded to eat it also. It took some time, but after awhile, I had cleared the entire plate of pancakes and the small amount of strawberries in the cup on the side of my plate.

I pushed the plate away when I was done, looking to Kiba, Chouji and Shikamaru who all gave me an approving look. I returned the look with a slight smile, all the while, in the back of my mind, I knew very well where the food would end up the minute I got back upstairs.

xXx

I've always hated throwing up.

I've always hated the gagging feeling you get when nothing comes up, I hate the tears that blur your vision when you're trying so hard to get anything to come up at all. Most of all, I hate the acidic taste of bile that always fills my mouth whenever something first starts coming up.

The attendant for the boy's bathroom was asleep when I got upstairs making it easy enough for me to slip into the bathroom and do what needed to be done. Shikamaru, Chouji and Kiba had all retired to different areas of treatment for the moment, so I was alone. Shikamaru in individual therapy, Chouji in physical therapy and Kiba went to art therapy.

It took a little time, but I finally got the pancakes up along with some of the strawberries. I never looked into the toilet when I threw up; I always kept my eyes closed. It was more than enough for me to feel the food passing back up out my mouth to know that I had gotten it out, than to actually look at it.

When I was done, I flushed the toilet, and stepped outside, frowning at the smell of vomit that dispersed into the air. It wasn't heavy, but you could definitely smell it. I picked up a can of air freshener that rested on the metal plank that rested just beneath the long mirror mounted onto the wall and sprayed it over the bathroom. Pretty soon the bathroom smelled like a horrid flowery mess, but it was enough, it covered up the smell.

I sighed, leaning down to rinse my mouth out with water and spit out into the sink. I turned to look at the bathroom attendant. He was still sleeping.

I left the bathroom, winding my hands into my sleeves as I headed back for my room. I was actually feeling tired, and desperately wanted to curl up into my bed and take a nap. Thankfully, Sasuke wasn't in our room when I returned, so I took the opportunity to get back into bed, kicking off my black chucks and curling up within my flannel sheet and resting my head on the pillow.

I let sleep claim me.


	5. tomorrow comes today

**part ii-b; **_tomorrow comes today  
shikamaru_

I can't tell you why I tried to commit suicide.

It's just that …I don't feel anything anymore.

Nothing I do evokes any feeling in me. It's like I'm living in an endless movie, everything is on repeat and it's the same mundane thing every single day.

You know that movie where the kid wakes up on Christmas morning? And he wishes it was Christmas every day and then it keeps repeating and repeating until he just gets fed up with it all and wants things to go back to normal? I feel like that on a daily basis. Except, in his case, things _did _go back to normal. He resumed life with a different approach and was grateful for what he had.

Me? It's not that I'm not grateful for what I have.

I've grown up with both my parents in a pretty stable environment. I've never been abused, subjected to divorce, or experienced something traumatic like some people do growing up. I've had a pretty normal life. My parents have always provided for me, and I used to think that was all I needed. Sure, my father's just about as lazy as I am, and my mother is a bit overbearing and tyrannical at times, but aren't all mothers to some degree?

Maybe it's just all too normal.

Maybe I need more; maybe I need something else in my life besides this normality.

I'm not stupid. Far from it, trust me. Supposedly I would be considered a genius just on my IQ alone. But I wonder, is that all I am? Aside from being me, Shikamaru, who am I? Maybe this is all I am, maybe that's all I'm supposed to be. Shikamaru Nara, that lazy genius kid who barely tries at all at anything and always ends up succeeding.

There's got to be more to me than that.

Maybe I just needed a break, a little vacation away from the normality that was my life. Maybe I just needed to go away to a place that wasn't normal. A place like I'm in right now. And how did I get here? Well, the story isn't too long. I just did something that most people wouldn't consider, _normal_; you know, which was what I was aiming for to begin with.

The night I overdosed was a normal night like any other. Well, besides the overdosing part, obviously.

My mother was downstairs cooking dinner, the heavy aroma of spices dispersing throughout the house. My father was in the living room, watching television, having just walked in the door from work a few minutes earlier. I was supposedly doing my homework, or so they thought. Actually, I was in my room rationalizing my existence again. As in, why was I still alive? What was the point to life? I'm so bored with everything, etcetera, etcetera, blah, blah, blah, you get the point.

Well, boredom breeds odd philosophies at times, and pretty soon I found myself in the upstairs bathroom scouring our medicine cabinet. It was full of stuff, Tylenol, Advil, some sleeping pills, that natural herbal stuff dad makes at work, mom's …special medicine (I'm not going into any more detail than that, ugh, woman) and some more shit with too many x's and y's and or's and ip's.

I don't remember too much after that, everything comes and goes in fragments.

I remember my mother finding me in the bathroom and screaming at my father to call 911. The police were there, as was EMS and just about everyone on our block was peaking outside of their windows or standing out on the sidewalk, wondering what was going on. Guess it wasn't so normal, you know, for our little normal block, in our little normal town, full of little normal families.

I was strapped down to a stretcher, and they wheeled me out into the ambulance. They were asking me questions, so many damn questions, but I was just unresponsive to everything. The flashing lights, watching the stars in the night sky, remembering my mother's face, my father's voice, that's all I remembered before I blacked out.

When I woke up, there were a bunch of tubes stuck up my nose and in my arms. I heard the faint beep of a heart monitor to my side, and with that, established that I was in the hospital. At the hospital, they'd checked me into the psychiatric ward after my condition had been stabilized. I stayed there a while, not at all interested or fazed by what had just happened.

My mother and father were at a lost. I wasn't talking to them; I really didn't feel like talking to begin with, really. A few days passed, all of which were full of tests and people talking to me on a constant. By the end of the week they'd diagnosed me with major depression.

It made sense if you thought about it.

I hadn't been eating or sleeping much, I'd pretty much lost interest in everything around me. Not to say that much interested me to begin with, I don't know. I didn't really care. I was pretty much apathetic to just about everything at that point. It wasn't normal, at least, in my world it wasn't considered normal. I think it's what I wanted, kind of.

Anyway, after some talk with doctors, they decided it would be best to send me away from home to somewhere where I could get professional help around the clock and when I needed it. And that was how I ended up where I am now. It's not so bad; I'm fine with being here for the time being. It gives me a chance to be surrounded by people different than what I'm used to. You know, people who aren't _normal_.

As for how I'm feeling now, I'm still trying to figure out why I did it in the first place. I mean, sure, like I said before it wasn't _normal _per se, but there's more to it than that.

What's going on in the inside of me that's making me feel this way?

...I guess, ultimately, that's the main thing I've got to figure out while I'm here.


	6. nantes

**part iii-a; **_nantes_**  
**_naruto_

How do you keep saying to yourself that there's nothing wrong when you keep waking up in places and you don't know where you are? That's how I felt when I woke up on my back, staring at a white ceiling with no recollection of how I'd gotten there.

My eyes felt dry, my lids heavy like lead. It was quiet and the lights were dimmed wherever I was. I turned my head to the side to see that it was probably day time outside the window. I could make that much out even though the blinds were closed and the drapes were drawn. I sighed loudly, swallowing gently afterward.

I felt weak and exhausted, and my throat burned and felt raw when I swallowed. When I tried to flex my right arm, I winced in pain as I felt something sharp jabbing at the inside of my elbows.

I looked down to see there was a needle jabbed into my skin and it had been taped into place so it didn't fall out.

My eyes traveled the length of the needle and found it hooked up to a clear plastic bag, mounted on a stand. It was an intravenous drip. A beep startled me from looking at the stand, and down to something wide and rectangular at my side with a drape thrown over the top. I established it was a heart monitor from the steady beeps it was emitted, despite it being covered up.

I must've been in the infirmary …or a hospital or something.

The door to my room opened up slowly, and I turned my head to see who was entering the room. She blocked out the bright light from the hallway, and closed the door as soon as she cleared the doorway. She reached to the left of her, turning a dial next to the door and a dim light filled the room. I winced as my eyes adjusted to the light.

Her heels clacked noisily against the floor. Too loud, they were_ way _too loud.

_So you're awake._

I looked away from her. I didn't want to hear her lecturing at the moment; I was trying to get my bearings as it was.

_Looks like there's been a lot more going on than you've been letting on, Naruto. You're lucky Sasuke was there to find you when he did, or else I don't want to think about what might have happened. I'll have to get into Hiruzen about minding the patients more. _

Her voice was stern, but it wasn't condescending. Like a warning or something, as in, _don't fuck up again._

_We'll keep you here for a few days for observation and to keep a closer eye on you. Your vitals aren't near what they should be, and it's a scary thought to think what might have happened if we didn't catch this sooner. I'll let you get some rest. You'll need it._

I still didn't look at her. Her noisy heels clicked and clacked away from my bed side, the door once again closed and I was submerged in darkness. Without a second thought I closed my eyes, the memories of what had happened yesterday flooding back to me in the forms of dreams.

xXx

I hadn't been feeling too well during the course of the week.

No surprise there.

I was exhausted, cold, feeling light headed and disoriented with each passing day. Any smart person would tell you it was most likely due to the fact that I refused to keep food of any sort in my system. Honestly, I've never been the purging type. I would rather avoid eating any way I could, and if I had been forced to, I most likely would end up exercising to the point of passing out, or finding someway else to get rid of what I'd just eaten. I almost never resorted to throwing up.

At least… I tried not to.

That is, unless I was feeling at my lowest. It hurt, it was messy, and it took a hell of a lot more energy to hide purging than pretending to eat or finding excuses for not eating.

Tsunade didn't look too pleased with me when she was done with my vitals near the end of my first week in treatment. I was currently sitting on the examination table, my legs dangling off the edge, wrapped up in my orange flannel sheet. I wanted to get back in my bed because I could barely keep my head up as it was.

She took a seat by the counter near the door, crossing her legs and flipping over sheets. Tsunade leaned down onto the counter, a balled fist pressed against her cheek as she looked over the clipboard she had dropped down on the surface. She was writing furiously, flipping back pages and then sighing as she shook her head.

"I don't like the inconsistencies I'm seeing in your weight." She continued, "Your pulse and blood pressure have consistently been on a decline, and your temperature is doing the same." Tsunade looked up at me, "This shouldn't be happening, Naruto. Talk to me. Are you eating? You're not purging or exercising are you?"

I shrugged my shoulders, lowering my gaze and looking away from her. What was I supposed to tell her? Oh, I'm eating, alright. I'm just throwing up the majority of whatever you guys give me.

I don't want to eat in the first place and most of the food here is less than appetizing. Breakfast is far from tolerable, lunch is absolutely disgusting, and don't even get me started on what I think about dinner.

It's almost like they're encouraging me to starve myself.

Kiba, Chouji and Shikamaru try and make sure I eat, but they can't be with me all the time, can they? Especially when our schedules differ throughout the day and some of the bathroom staff are less than attentive to the behaviors of patients.

Especially ones with my sort of condition.

"Naruto." She began as she frowned at me. I turned to look at her, but I didn't say anything. "If you're combating treatment, you're not doing anything to help yourself, I hope you know that."

She was right. I hadn't opened up in group since I'd arrived, not counting the time when Iruka had asked me to introduce myself. I had barely talked to Kakashi about anything. Most of our sessions consisted of him sitting at his desk, with me staring up at the ceiling while he waited on me to speak. It wasn't happening, not now, not ever.

They had started me out in art therapy since Tuesday. Supposedly, all the weight issues patients had to do it. Art therapy wasn't so bad, but I hadn't made much of an effort there either. Along with my failures in therapy, like I said before, almost anything I ate I tried to purge. I spent more time prolonging my treatment than actually trying to cooperate with anyone in this place.

_**You don't want to get better. You like being this way, kit.**_

Tsunade began scribbling something down on her clipboard. "Well? Last chance. Do you have anything to say or are you just going to continue to stay silent?"

"I'm eating." My voice sounded hoarse to my ears. It was foreign and something I wasn't used to. It wasn't a complete and total lie, but it was damn well near it. I _was _eating; I just wasn't keeping it down. I fidgeted when she stared at me for a long time. Who was I fooling? Myself, of course. But Tsunade? No. She did this for a living. She probably saw right through me.

Tsunade sighed, shaking her head and muttering something under her breath about me being difficult. She didn't seem convinced, "I'm going to up your dosage of vitamins and supplements starting today. We'll see how things go from there." She looked up at the clock overhead and stepped down off of her chair, her stiletto heels clicking rhythmically against the linoleum floor. Tsunade reached for the door handle, and nodded at me so I could leave, "I'll see you tomorrow morning."

I left the examination room, sighing loudly to show my frustration. Tsunade, of course, ignored my tantrums as she always did. As I left, Shizune was there to escort me back to my room as usual. When I got back in, I immediately got back into bed and lay down. Sasuke, as always, was missing.

I had long given up on getting any decent sleep in this place. I merely took cat naps in-between my therapy breaks and whenever meals were being served. It was like my body couldn't rest no matter how tired I was, and it had nearly been a _week _since I'd been admitted here.

Honestly, in the week that I had been here, nothing had changed much. The most I'd done was familiarizing myself more with the people that worked here, along with other kids my age that were patients here.

Chouji, Shikamaru and Kiba were my default 'group' that I hung out with. We sat together at meal times, during group and on our downtime. There was also Lee, who had joined our little group sometime during the course of the week.

He had something called othorexia. Something not fully recognized by the medical community, but the phrase was still coined every now and then. It had nothing to do with weight. Instead he was obsessed with the notion of fanatical healthy eating. Strange, I know. Also, along with that, he was a compulsive exerciser. It sounded a bit like what I had …sans the eating healthy part. At least he ate.

I just never ate at all.

As for the girls in my group, Ino had warmed up to me slightly. She still had her edge, but underneath it all, she was alright. Hinata was almost like the female version of Sasuke, only she was just incredibly shy. The most you could get out of her was a timid hello, but that was about it.

I learned that Sakura wasn't as dainty as she had previously let on, or at least, I had thought she was. There lied something very fierce underneath that calm smile and collected exterior. I don't know what Kiba did to her, but he came into the day room with an ice pack over one of his eyes one night and the only word out his mouth was, "Sakura," before he took a seat down next to me to watch this shitty movie me, Chouji and Shikamaru had turned to.

Sai was another one who I didn't completely get to know yet. I had met him once or twice at vitals in the morning, but he was usually gone before I arrived. He was in my block for art therapy, but he didn't say much. He was always so concentrated, or focused on what he was doing. In group, he was another one who didn't speak, and I found it hard to read him. He was always smiling, but I could tell that whatever his story was, it was nothing to smile about.

Gaara was like the second coming of Sasuke. Quiet, menacing looking and creepy. Just his stare alone could drive you out of a room. Not much else to say about him.

Speaking of Sasuke, he still eluded me.

I turned to look at the other part of the room that my incorrigible roommate occupied. He was always here before I went to vitals, and gone before I returned. Most of the time, he usually popped up around the same time I got back. Sasuke was still quiet, still a bastard, and still antisocial. He still hadn't said a _word _to anyone yet, and I still didn't know what was wrong with him.

I had tried talking to him some more throughout the week, but I had been met with nothing but blank, condescending or angry stares. He didn't have to say anything; his facial expressions were more than enough. I still didn't know what his problem was, but he had them. That was for sure.

Bastard.

There was a knock at my door, and I was knocked out of my Sasuke bashing thoughts. I rolled over in bed slowly, looking at the door. "Mm?"

I saw Kiba poking his wild head in, grinning from ear to ear, "Hey, Naruto? You up?" He was still dressed in pajamas, and from the looks of it, he probably had just woken up.

I sighed and with a bit of effort, I pushed myself up, letting my blanket fall off my shoulders. The world swirled before my eyes, so I closed them momentarily as I steadied myself, "Yea. Just …kind of tired."

Kiba cocked his head to the side, "You okay, man? You look like you're gonna hurl."

I waved my hand at him as if to signal that everything was fine. Sure it was. I opened my eyes, looking up at Kiba. "I'm fine." I glanced at the clock and then looked back at Kiba, "Why are you up so early? We don't have group scheduled for today and art therapy isn't until this afternoon."

"Yeah," Kiba said, opening the door a bit wider and took it as an invitation to let himself in. He glanced towards Sasuke's bed, snorted and then looked at me. "I can't sleep, figured I'd see if anyone were up also. Why are you up so early?"

I picked up my blanket, drawing it right back over my shoulders, "Vitals."

"That's right. Jeez, what the fuck? Can't they take it a little bit later?" Kiba asked, glancing at the clock as I had done. "It's barely seven."

I shrugged, "They've got a lot of people to go through." I said, "Some people take longer than others."

Kiba plopped down on my bed, crossing his legs as he did. "Well, how'd yours go?"

"What?" I asked, looking at him. "Oh." I frowned, waving a hand dismissively at the question. "Fine."

"That's good." Kiba looked away from me and then back at Sasuke's bed, "Where's Mute Boy at?"

I shook my head, "No idea. He's always gone when I come back. Probably off being a bastard and primping in front of a mirror and being a girl or something."

Kiba laughed loudly at my remark, and grinned. He rocked back and forth for a moment and then looked at me, "Well, wanna do something? I was gonna go take a shower in a few and then maybe sit around and watch some cartoons or something until it's time to be subjected to torture."

A shower sounded nice. I needed, rather, _wanted_, something calming at the moment. I nodded at Kiba, and he got off the bed and stood up. Tiredly, I got to my feel, shuffled my feet into my slippers and pushed myself off the bed. I felt like my legs could barely support me as I stood up, and my vision was blurring again. I took one step, and instantly felt my legs buckle under my weight and sat back down on the bed, holding my head as the world continued to swim in and out of focus before me.

"Woah." Kiba said, as I fell back down onto the bed, "Be careful. Are you sure you're fine? You don't want me to get a nurse or something?"

I nodded, "I just got up too fast."

Kiba didn't look too convinced, but I knew he wouldn't hold me to anything. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah." I said, letting the blanket fall off my shoulders, and pushed myself back up again. Once I was steady and my vision stable, I made my way across the room and made my way over to my wardrobe to grab my towel from off the top shelf, some clothes and tuned to Kiba with a reassuring smile, "Let's go."

xXx

The feeling only got worse during the day.

Earlier that morning, I had felt a bit better after I'd taken a shower but the feeling wore off and I was right back at feeling exhausted and disoriented. I could barely concentrate on what I was doing. My vision wavered, my hands felt clammy and cold and I could barely center myself.

Moving required so much effort and I was just so tired that I didn't want to do anything at all.

Chouji, Shikamaru, Lee, Kiba and I headed to the dining room for breakfast directly after group. They'd given me waffles and a banana for breakfast that morning. I could already feel an impending headache as my mind started calculating.

Breakfast was always a predictable meal. Most times, everyone would gather around (everyone being me, Lee, Chouji, Shikamaru and Kiba for the time being) and discuss what was going on in our treatments since we'd last seen each other. Despite the fact that we saw each other on a daily basis, believe me, a lot could happen in a day in this place.

That morning, Chouji had decided to divulge the details of how his weight loss was going. Supposedly he had lost three pounds over the course of the week, and received affirmative congratulations from around the table.

The rest of us might have been hell bent on staying crazy …well, maybe just me and Kiba. Shikamaru didn't really care, and Lee was having a hard time breaking his strict eating regimens, but he was trying. But Chouji was really focused on losing weight.

Shikamaru went next, talking about how they'd finally put him on some type of antidepressant. He said he hadn't entirely gotten to the route of his problems, and he wasn't going to force it. It would come to him when he was ready.

If only the rest of us were as laid back as Shikamaru.

Kiba breezed over what was going on with him, stating that he'd gotten written up that morning for a messy room, but not much else.

When it came to me, I lied by telling them that I was progressing in my own treatment. I think they'd long figured out—well, Kiba still slipped up from time to time—that I was uncomfortable with sharing anything related to why I was in here. So I'd usually tell them, "I'm fine." or, "Things are going okay." And that's just how we left it.

Lee didn't really have an update for the day, so he went off on a tangent about something that wasn't related to what we were talking about at all.

I pretty much tuned them all out as I slowly ate my breakfast.

I began counting each chew, feeling each piece of food slip past my tongue and down my esophagus, pooling into my stomach as a congealed mess. I could feel my hands clench my fork painfully as I tried to push the disgusted thoughts out of my head.

_**One hundred …two hundred and thirty …four hundred …don't forget the syrup …what are you doing?**_

_I don't know._

I started to blank out at that moment.

It was something that happened when I couldn't handle eating. I'd been doing it since I'd been discharged from the hospital, continued while I was at home, and it had started up again since I'd been here. It helped me cope a little bit, but it wasn't enough. But it assuaged the feeling I got when I started eating, and that was what I needed.

I don't remember what I said, but everyone turned to look up at me the minute I stood up from the table and excused myself after I had finished eating. I walked back over to the serving area to hand my tray back over to the chefs and with that I was heading back to the residential areas.

I took long strides to the elevator, running my hands up and down over my arms as I waited for the elevator to reach the ground floor and take me back upstairs. When it came I boarded and once it reached the second floor, I made my way past the nurses' station and towards the bathrooms.

**WHERE **_**is your control?**_

_It's here, it's here…_

_**Really, kit? Are you sure? You were inhaling that food like you actually wanted it.**_

_I wasn't inhaling it. I was just eating it so I could get rid of it. _

_**Are you sure?**_

_YES._

While the war waged on inside my head, I rushed past the sleeping bathroom attendant (whom everyone called the Third for some reason, something about him being an old war time general or hero or something) I threw open the stall door and locked myself inside.

I fell to my knees in front of the toilet and within minutes had myself heaving up a congealed mess into the porcelain bowl before me. My stomach lurched, my abdomen pained me, my fingers would be bruised, my throat raw and sore, this all never went away. I coughed harshly, feeling my stomach give one last painful heave as I could barely support myself up on my legs anymore. I could feel my eyes misting over, as my legs gave out from underneath me and I fell over to the side of the toilet, my back against one of the stall walls.

The whole world around me seemed to be crashing down, moving too fast, it was all too much to handle. Being _here _was just too much to handle. I couldn't keep doing this. What were my limits?

I should have gotten up already and gotten out of the bathroom, but my strength had all but left me and all I could do was sit and try and calm myself down at the moment. I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack. My breathing was labored, my vision blurry and my heart was hammering in my chest. And I was cold; I was so fucking cold it was ridiculous.

With a shaking hand, I reached up to the toilet tissue dispenser by my head and tugged feebly at the paper to rip. Once I'd gathered up a wad I brought it to my face and began cleaning off the remnants of what would have been my breakfast from around my mouth. I threw the wad in the toilet, and rested my head against my knees as I tried to calm myself down with deep breathing.

Once I felt like I could move again, I held onto the wall and pushed myself up to my feet. Without a second look at the toilet, I flushed it and took a moment to straighten myself out, breathe and then I let myself out. However, my moment of triumph was completely overcome by dread when I came out of the bathroom and saw the person staring right back at me through the bathroom mirror.

Sasuke.

It was just him, me, and old man Third, who was still asleep. As if I needed to add this to my stress level. As if I _needed _Sasuke in the bathroom with me at this _exact _moment in time.

What if he had heard me? What if he had known what I was doing? It wasn't his business anyway, what would he care? Instinctively, I wound my hands into the fabric of my long sleeved shirt and stood in front of the door with Sasuke watching me the whole time. If I didn't care what he thought, why was it taking me so long to move?

I could hear my blood rushing in my ears as I tried to move beyond where I stood, but my feet wouldn't budge. I was starting to tremble, my heart beat increasing so rapidly I was having a hard time breathing. I honestly felt like I was losing control of my body. My mind was buzzing, I just couldn't calm down no matter how hard I tried.

And that's when I realized I was in the middle of having a panic attack.

I avoided Sasuke's gaze, but I felt those obsidian eyes still piercing holes through me. I walked up beside him and leaned over a vacant sink to turn the faucet on. I felt the panic attack stagnating, but I knew it could build again at any minute. I ran my hands underneath the faucet for a minute, then captured some water in my palm so I could rinse the taste of vomit out of my mouth. After I turned the water off, I stole a look at him and frowned.

He was _watching _me. What the _fuck_.

"You have something to say?" I asked, looking up at him, mirroring his glare or at least attempting to. I could feel my ire growing, and with it, the feelings of the panic attack were surging. "Or are you just going to keep staring at me?"

He didn't look away from me, and he didn't answer. That was only making me angrier. Why did I care so much?

"What is _wrong _with you! Why don't you ever talk?" My vision swam before my eyes again, and I felt myself having to brace myself on the sink with one hand as I continued to yell at him, "How can you just walk around here like some fucking weirdo just staring and glaring at people, huh?"

And that was when my body chose to shut down.

I was freaking the fuck out, and I couldn't do anything to rectify it. I frowned, holding a hand up to my head to try and steady myself as I felt the light headedness I was feeling earlier intensify. My vision blurred and swirled again, and I instinctively drew a hand to my chest to try and ground myself. The minute I took a step forward, I found myself falling.

It was like everything was in slow motion.

Sasuke's figure swimming before my eyes, me pointing at him and saying something, and then I was finding myself about to connect face first with the dirty linoleum floor of the bathroom when something stopped me from falling any further. The edges of my vision were starting to gray and dim, but I was pressed against something rigid, yet soft. Something slid around my abdomen and braced me solidly into a hold.

"_Don't die on me, idiot._"

That was Sasuke. His voice sounded far away as I could feel myself slipping over, my eyes closing. His voice was almost like I had imagined. Grating, harsh, and in all respects, befitting of him. Guess he wasn't so mute after all. I felt Sasuke's other arm slip around my abdomen to hoist me up, and pretty soon felt my body being pressed against a cool surface when he set me back down a few minutes later.

"_Even after all the stupid shit you've been pulling on me since you got in here, you better not die on me, idiot_."

After that, everything went black.

xXx

During the time I was in the infirmary, I didn't do anything.

…Well, physically that is. Mentally, well, I'll get to that later.

It was like I was in the hospital, but a bit more lax. I more or less slept and had my vitals taken around the clock. They force fed me intravenously the entire time, and my bathroom breaks were always monitored and kept short to an allotment of two minutes to be spent in the bathroom.

They also found out I was purging—which Tsunade had suspected from the beginning—and following that, I suffered my first legit warning that if something like this happened again.

When I was stable enough I was discharged from the infirmary that following Thursday evening while dinner was going on.

Along with the clear purple tag I already wore around my wrist to let people know I was an eating disorder patient, I was tagged with an orange one upon my release. Supposedly it meant _extreme supervision needed _or something equally annoying. Tsunade said it'd be removed when I showed _improved behavior _which I lazily interpreted as sweet talk for _allowing us to fatten you up. _

The first thought that entered my mind when I was escorted back to my room was that I wanted to go back to sleep.

I hadn't seen anyone since I'd been in the infirmary, but I knew they knew I had been in there. Tsunade had said something along the lines of my group knew about my condition and they hoped I got well soon. Whatever, I'd deal with it when I finally headed back to group.

I was tired and worn out even though it really should have been the opposite. Sasuke was missing when I got back to our ...my room. Nothing new there, seems like nothing had changed since I'd been gone.

Well, me, perhaps.

I don't …I don't know how to put it. I was tired, but it wasn't the same worn down feeling that I was experiencing from before. Maybe it was because I had food in my system, maybe not. I wasn't feeling as anxious as I had been before. I don't know what it was, but it was different. I …welcomed it to a sort of degree.

I thought that maybe this had been my breaking point.

Well …passing out in the bathroom had to do with it. Well, not just that. Just being here …

Don't get me wrong, I hated this place. We all did. Every single one of us that was here. If we didn't agree on anything else, it was that. But, maybe, this pressure was what I needed. Going to therapy once a week certainly didn't really do much and being admitted to the hospital late last month was the beginning of all of this. That's what I thought at least.

Maybe I really needed to be here. As much …as I don't want to let this go, a part of me, a small, insignificant part of me feels that this isn't the way to go about things. I've had these thoughts before …but …that voice, that thing inside my head far outweighs them every time. Maybe it's time for a change.

I fell asleep shortly after returning to my room, and came to a half hour later when Kurenai came and got me for some reason. I had a phone call. I already had a feeling as to who it was, and I really didn't feel like talking to anyone in my current state. I just wanted to get back to my room and fall asleep and deal with whatever came my way in the morning. I followed her out of my room and down the hall to where the phone booths were. She nodded to me, pointed to the first booth, told me I had ten minutes and then left for the nurses' station across the hall.

When she was out of earshot, I sighed and picked up the phone, "Hello?"

"Naruto!" It was Jiraiya, "I hear you're causing trouble still, hm?"

"It's …nothing." I said, wincing at my grandfather's loud voice.

"They said you fainted." He countered. "I don't count that as _nothing_. Are you eating? Rather, _have _you been eating?"

"…Yes …No."

"Naruto."

"Don't start. Where's Dad?"

"Working. He's got a late shift tonight."

"I figured as much." I mumbled, looking up at the wooden wall beside the phone. People had scribbled their names and phrases into the wall. "Are you going to tell him?"

"I should..." Jiraiya said, although he trailed off like he was contemplating something.

"Don't."

"Why not? He could have very well known had I not been the one to receive a phone call about my grandson passing out in a bathroom and being in the infirmary for nearly a week."

"I don't want him to know, alright? Can we just leave it at that? I'm under enough stress as it is over here. I don't need Dad calling me up and talking to me about this either. You're more than enough."

I heard Jiraiya sigh loudly on the other end and he cleared his throat, "Fine, fine, if that's the way you feel. Go, get some rest. I was just calling to check up on you seeing as when you were in the infirmary, they said you couldn't have any phone calls."

"You promise?"

"I really shouldn't, but for your stress level, I will." He said, "I'll call you later and I won't tell your father unless you promise me you won't do something like this again and start following protocols of treatment instead of fighting them, understood?"

"Right." I replied, tracing over some more phrases and names on the wall. "I'll …talk to you later."

"Remember what I said." Jiraiya lectured, "Goodnight. Stay well. Call me if you need me."

"Alright, alright, I will." I sighed, "Night."

I hung up the phone, exited the booth and looked to Kurenai who got out from behind the station and went to escort me back to my room. In that split second before she left, I asked her to wait a minute so I could gather up my towel and asked her to escort me to the bathroom so I could take a shower and get ready for bed.

Old man Third was in the bathroom, awake, this time. He pointed at me and winked, telling me that he was going to start watching me more closely like he did with Sai, now knowing that I was one of _those _patients. I simply ignored him, too tired to retort with anything and went about taking my shower. Kurenai had been called off to the girl's wing for some reason, so Tonton was there to take me back to my room.

Sasuke was in the room when I returned.

He was on his bed as he always was. Back against the wall, head bowed down as he read whatever book was in his lap. He was dressed in pajamas, which for Sasuke typically consisted of something dark and long sleeved. He never seemed to wear anything else besides navy blue, gray, black, red and the occasional white, but that was rare.

His eyes drifted slowly from the book and then up to look at me. There was nothing snide or condescending about the look he was giving me, it was unreadable actually. It was like he wanted to say something to me but was debating on whether to open his mouth or not.

I simply smiled tiredly at him, forgoing the thought of being an absolute dick, and turned my back on him as I fell onto my bed and sighed deeply. I was too tired and I just didn't have it in me in the moment.

I sat up in bed a few minutes later so I could bend over and draw my tangled sheets from off the floor. When I was settled in, orange flannel sheet wrapped around my shoulders, I turned to look at Sasuke who was looking right back at me, "Guess it got lonely glaring at the darkness since I wasn't here, huh?" I asked, noting the slight glare that was coming back to his eyes and smiled instinctively. Good, that was more like it. "Anyway, I'm going to bed, I'm tired and we have group in the morning so …" I turned over on my side, "Goodnight."

The room was silent for quite some time before I heard Sasuke move. I didn't bother asking him to turn off the lamp on the nightstand because for one, I knew he would just stare at me as if he were deaf, and two, I can pretty much sleep through anything when I put my mind to it.

This was one of those nights.

Just as I was braving the line between consciousness and sleep, I felt the light dim behind me. With a quick open of my eyes, I saw the room had been submerged in darkness. With a quick glance over my shoulder, I saw Sasuke was in his bed, back to me. With that, I turned back on my side and closed my eyes, feeling a slight smile coming to my face as I felt myself falling under shortly.


	7. double bass

**part iii-b;**_ double bass_**  
**_kiba_

I hate the fact that people always feel the need to analyze everything that I do.

So what if my dad left before I could even remember him? So what if I had to fend and take care of myself earlier than most kids? So what if I didn't have the classic family with an older or younger sibling, mom, dad, dog and white picket fence? The real world doesn't work like that. That's not reality. It's not _my _reality.

Besides, how I was raised or what's happened to me in my sixteen years of life doesn't make me any less of a person than the next. So I made a few bad choices, but doesn't everyone? I'm still here, aren't I? Doesn't that count for something?

I guess everything started when my dad left my family when I was only three. Like I mentioned before, I don't remember him at all, so why should I get all angry and sad over it? It pisses me off, but what can I do about it? He's gone. Obviously if my family had meant anything to him he would have tried to contact us in the thirteen years that he's been gone. But he hasn't. And that's just how things are. That's just how things were left.

Anyway, that left mom with picking up after his slack. She began working two jobs to support the three of us, and that left Hana, my older sister, in charge of me most of the time. While mom worked, I would stay with this old lady that lived on our floor for the day. When Hana got out of school, she would pick me up and the two of us would be home alone for however long we had to be until mom came home. Hana was eight when all of this started, and honestly, I look up to her more than I do my own parents. She did her best to look after me, but it was a child looking after another child. She wasn't an adult. Hana couldn't provide for me in the same way that my mother should have been doing, but she tried to fulfill that role, and I know she did what she could.

The system worked for awhile, and when I started school, things got a bit easier. But like everything else in my life, it didn't stay that way for too long before things started to fall to shit. When I was about seven, things with my mom started to get a bit crazy. My mom was always a bit of a drinker and she used to be a heavy drug user before Hana and I were born. When she met my dad, she had stopped using and drinking for awhile. With him gone, it was only a matter of time before she lost what stability she had and regressed into who she used to be.

As time went on, she barely worked anymore and the house basically turned into a drug den. When Hana and I returned home from school every day, we'd never know what the hell to expect. It was in those days that I began to learn how to defend myself.

Mom never took out her rage on Hana, it was always on me. I was always her target. Everything she felt, her frustrations, rage, anger, and stress, anything she felt was taken out on me. She was always screaming about how I looked just like my father, and how I was going to turn out exactly like him if she didn't beat some sense into me. She always told me it was for my benefit and that she was helping me.

Back then, I didn't know what to make of it.

I was always under the impression from my mom that my dad had been a horrible person and I didn't want to be that type of person when I was little. I didn't want to be the person that would upset my mom as much as he had. What type of son would I be if I did that? And yet, as time went on, I saw the differences between how my sister treated me and how my mom treated me, and I began to understand what my mom was doing wasn't right.

A little while she had turned eighteen and graduated from high school, Hana moved me and her out of our old apartment and into a new one a few miles away from our old town. She wanted to get the two of us as far away from our mother as she could. And yet, even with the change in enviornment, the damage my mother had dealt to me had been done.

Something inside me just _snapped. _I was tired of taking shit for something that wasn't my fault. It was around this time, a little bit before my twelfth birthday, that I started acting out. In the next two to three years, I got into fights with people all the time, started stealing, cutting school on a daily basis and getting suspended and expelled. Hana did everything in her power to try and figure out what my problem was, but I just wouldn't talk to her. She did what she could for me, but between working all the time and college taking up so much of her time, I was often left to my own devices for the majority of the day.

The summer I turned fifteen, I started using and occasionally selling drugs. I met this guy Shino. He was quiet and a bit weird, but he was just like me in some respects. He came from a broken home, and the only place where he found peace was running the streets doing his own thing. We would ditch school so many times to just smoke pot and pop pills, just getting high to do whatever we want. The only times we ever really went to school was to sell drugs to someone, any other time we just ran the streets.

In the beginning of my junior year, Shino eventually got busted for the possession and selling of marijuana. They sent him away for awhile, but when he came back in the spring of the following year, he was completely changed. He distanced himself from me, and personally I wasn't having that.

The guy I said I held up with a knife? It was Shino.

I wasn't lying when I said I had a bad temper. I'm quick to fight someone if they say or do something I don't like. It's gotten me in trouble loads of time, but I've always been able to get myself out of trouble when I needed it. But not this time. I was so angry that the only person that I felt like I had had some connection to, besides my sister, had left me, changed on me. I felt like I didn't know him anymore, and it was getting me so angry. Shino didn't bait me; I was the one who couldn't control my actions. He remained silent the entire time I yelled at him and tried to coerce him into a fight.

Long story short, when they found us, they arrested me and expelled me on the spot. Afterward I was immediately shipped off to juvi. I stayed there for a month or two before the judge reviewed my records and finally decided the best course of action was to send me here.

Hana was absolutely livid with me when she found out what I had done. When the courts found out about my living situation and after questioning my sister about where our parents were and my mother's inability to properly care for me, Hana was granted legal guardianship over me at the age of twenty two.

So as a result of all this crazy shit I've got to spend the summer here and do this program as part of my probation. It's to 'rehabilitate' me for the real world or some shit. After I successfully complete the program here, I've got a ton of community service to go through and some other stuff I've got to do. I'm still angry about being here, but I think the longer I'm here, the more the anger goes 's whatever. At least the kids here aren't timid and afraid of me like the ones back home are. Primarily because they don't really know how _bad _I can get.

It's whatever. The only thing I'm really focused on is giving Hana a peace of mind. After all of this transpired, she's been so worried about me and I guess if I'm able to to do something positive that'll give her less of a reason to stress and worry about me, I'll be doing something right.

At least ...I can do that much for her by being here.


	8. dark side of night

**part iii-c;** _dark side of night_  
_ino_

You're probably thinking a story like mine has probably been told a million times. This is going to be the simple tale of a pretty girl who goes on a diet because she thinks she's fat and it ends up becoming so much more than a simple _diet_.

Well let me tell you something, there's much more to it than that. It was never a _diet_. This isn't something that I _wanted_. What I wanted in my life was a little bit of control …something that wasn't fleeting, something I could keep a hold on. Something that gave me _some _sort of stability when I felt so out of control.

Oh, I have control alright.

I have so much control that I have no period. I have so much control that my insides are all fucked up. I have so much control my heart is weak after everything I've put my body through. I have so much control that I've got this giant bald spot in the middle of my head where I fasten my ponytail. I have so much control that every minute of my life is spent calculating when I eat, what I eat, what I can't have, what I can, what can I do to get rid of it?

Control, hm?

People say I'm this way because of my mother. I don't know how much truth there is to that statement, but I guess I'll elaborate.

My mother was a dancer. Lithe, strong and beautiful. She had a natural talent, a gift of dance, they had told her. To my mother, her dancing was everything. She had been training in ballet and various forms of dance ever since she was a child. It was all sacrifice, long hours and dedication, but it was her passion, her dream. When she met my father, he knew what was most important in her heart. They were young, barely out of their teens …and yet, he shared that space with her love for dance and with it, they were married.

I …was a blessing to the two of them. …Or so, my father calls me a blessing ...

To my mother? I always felt like I was her curse. The thing that ended her life.

It was a miracle they had conceived a child in the first place. Her body wasn't really suited for childbirth, and it hadn't handled having a child well. Her once small and lean figure was now disfigured and foreign to her. She now carried weight in places she hadn't before she had me. My mother was always beautiful, but she always carried this androgynous look to her when she was a dancer. And now that she had me, all her feminine qualities were coming out. Budding breasts, curvaceous hips, signs of a full-fledged woman. And she hated, oh how she had hated it.

As a child I remember my mother always being conscious about what she ate. Every morsel that entered her mouth …everything was always fat free, sugar free, and if she could, calorie free. Anything so that she could keep her weight down so she could keep on dancing.

Children learn from their parents, it's a fact. Everything they inherit from this world? It's from their parents. The thing I inherited from my mother? Staying thin would always take precedence over my health. Gaining weight was like a comparison to death.

And it would become her death.

My mother worked long hours as a dance instructor at the local dance studio not too far from where we lived. I rarely saw her except for on weekends, and even then, she spent most of her time sleeping. When she wasn't sleeping, she would spend her time holed up in her room with my father trying to coax her into eating something. She always refused, screaming at him that he was always trying to fatten her up and that she was already fat enough. He would always leave the house after that to distance himself away from her when she was in her irrational moods.

That was when she turned her attention on me.

She would call me into the room, often stripped down to her underwear and she would be standing in front of the mirror with this eerie looking smile on her face. When I appeared, she would talk to me while looking in herself in the mirror.

_See, Ino? Do you see me? Do you see mommy?_

She had this ritual. She would always trail her hand from the top of her head, fingering her cheekbones, her jaw and then gripped at the loose skin that hung there. Next would be her neck, and then her collarbones. She'd draw both her arms up, holding them over her chest and fingered the sharp bones with her thumbs, pushing at them and trying to make them more pronounced. Following that, she'd trail her hands over her ribcage, counting each rib and then stopped, to talk to me again.

_Do you see how fat she is? She is fat, isn't she, Ino? Isn't mommy, fat? _

And then she would turn to look at me and cock her head to the side so that her blond hair swished over her shoulders and cascaded down her back. Her hands would trail down to her hips which she pressed on just like her collar bones. She would pause, and then look at me.

_But look at you. You're fat like mommy, Ino. You're more fat than mommy, Ino. You can't be like this. No, not at all. _

She was the first person to ever call me fat.

After that, she would turn away from me and just stare at herself in the mirror for the longest time. When my father came home, she would be dressed and sitting at the kitchen table. My father was none the wiser about the fucked up ritual that would commence every Sunday afternoon until the day she died. Following that, they would both apologize, he would give her anti-depressants and the three of us would sit down to dinner like a normal family, even though we were far from it.

She passed away when I was ten years old. I don't remember much about that day. She had been in the hospital for quite some time and I was often left in the company of one of my dad's friends when he went to the hospital for hours on end to be with mom. They said she had a heart attack. Her heart just gave out after thirty-one years and she couldn't fight anymore. After her death, my father invested all his time in me. I became his world now that my mom was gone.

However …those same behaviors my mother had had started to manifest as my own. I was around that age where everything was starting to revolve around looks and _only _looks. Boys wouldn't like a fat girl, would they?

I was only thirteen, five foot one, and a little over ninety pounds. But all I saw was fat. Everywhere, it was going to consume me. So it began. Restrict, starve, exercise, purge. It was a deadly cycle and my weight dropped from ninety to almost seventy pounds. The red flags went up. I was eventually diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, put into treatment and I started seeing a therapist, just as my mother had. My father wasn't going to lose me like he lost her.

Over the next two or three years, it was a never ending battle with the disorder. I fought with my father constantly about him trying to "fix" me and how he needed to leave me alone because I was just fine. It was therapist, after therapist, after therapist. I had been in and out of hospital inpatient programs four times. I'd been put on a feeding tube so many times; I can pretty much put it on myself if someone asked me to. Every cure they tried on me never worked, I always relapsed back into my old ways.

When I was sixteen, I had a heart attack ...just like my mother.

I flat lined at the hospital but they were able to bring me back. After that, I was kept in the hospital until I was partially stable and then transferred, for the first time, to residential treatment. Which is where I am now.

Part of me realizes that I need food to survive ...but then there's that bigger part of me that rationalizes that it's the enemy. I have to stay thin, that's the only way I'll be happy. But then I think ...why me? Why not someone else? Why am I the one that has this crazy voice in my head telling me that if I eat no one will like me? Or why do I have to feel guilty every time I eat? I know this is the disease that killed my mother, so where is the sense in me holding onto it?

I don't know.

I just don't know.


End file.
